Maledictum Insania: The Creation
by Nero Darkard
Summary: Depression. A state of mind often very underestimated. Sometimes, the only reason one falls to it is due to being ignored entirely. When no creature in the world cares for you, the results can be fatal. In the case for when the individuum is a demi-goddess of darkness in addition, the things created out of this depression can have an even much more terrible potential.
1. Stage 1: Depression

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

**Warning:** This is a grimdark my little pony fan fiction. Read at your own risk.

"Luna! Hey! Are you even listening?" Celestia wondered.

"Eh. Y-yes! I am!" Luna replied.

"So what do you think? Should we create this cutie mark spell or not?" Celestia repeated.

"Well... it certainly would make the reconstruction of Equestria much easier if we could find out what everypony's special talent is by just looking at them... but, I... I don't know..." Luna answered, very unsure.

Princess Celestia sighed in frustration. This was just like every other day to her. It was always the same with her sister.

"You know, this is one of the reasons why I don't understand why we are supposed to rule Equestria for all eternity together. If it was just one of us, everything would run a lot smoother," the bright demi-goddess stated.

Princess Luna stared down to the ground. Once again, she made a mistake. Once again, she was unable to increase her reputation towards her own sister.

"Luna. The ponies count on us. They need guidance now, since Discord completely destroyed their society," Celestia explained.

"I know..." Luna replied.

A moment of silence passed while the dark demi-goddess kept staring at the ground, trying to avoid the judging glance of her big sister. Finally Celestia turned around.

"The ponies need sleep. Please raise the moon, sister," she requested.

With these words, Celestia left Luna's throne room.

"Of course... I will... because that's the only thing my nights are good for... sleeping..." Luna mumbled.

And so began another night in the land of Equestria. Yet another where the subjects would immediately go hide away in their houses and sheds. But who is to blame them for this behaviour? Discord barely ever gave them a moment to sleep, so it is just understandable that they would use every moment of the night to sleep, Princess Luna figured.

Before she came to this world, the nights were just pitch black and gloomy. But ever since the spirit of chaos and disharmony had fallen, Luna was working hard on making the night time much more enjoyable for all creatures of this world.

Instead of total darkness, she had changed the color of the night sky to a beautiful purple. The moon also was no longer the only object seen in the sky. Millions of tiny sparkling stars helped the moon in illuminating the dark hours of this world with a soft blue light. Luna even went through the effort of arranging the stars in the sky to create pictures.

Yet, all this was only what she had done for the world in the first few years. There was so much more to be seen during the night, like shooting stars, the lunar eclipse, nebulas and distant galaxies to name just a few.

Princess Luna spent hundreds of years on the night sky. Until today, nopony ever even looked at her work more than a few moments. Too much did they desire to use the night time for sleeping and recovering their strength for the heavy working hours on the next day.

Turning Equestria back into the land it used to be was a very difficult task. Two hundred years have passed and the entire population was yet only half done in undoing the chaos. The unicorns, for example, tried hard to use their magic to break the chaotic incantations of Discord's magic.

The pegasi were busy the entire day, everyday, with dragging down levitating objects and whole landscapes. What made this task even more exhausting and frustrating was the fact that most of these objects were still too strongly imbued with magic to stay on the ground, forcing them to think of ways to hold them down until the unicorns could take care of this.

The earth ponies put all their strength into restoring the ecosystem of the land. With food and chocolate milk no longer randomly falling on their heads and having the problem that nearly all animals abandoned Equestria long ago, most subjects were suffering from hunger and thirst. Only very slowly where they able to cultivate forage crops, as well as other creatures came to understand that Equestria was inhabitable for all lifeforms again.

So, knowing how hard everypony was working, what right did Luna have to complain that no creature spent time with her or looked at her work?

The princess of the Night talked the situation down for herself. How bad could a few years of loneliness be when they served to restore Equestria and improve the living standard for all its subjects? But instead of just a few years, hundreds have passed and she still was alone.

Suddenly, Princess Luna was brought out of her thoughts as she heard somepony heading up the stairs to her throne room. On the outside, Luna remained her strong, determined and divine appearance, which was expected of her as the co-ruler of Equestria. But on the inside, her heart started beating faster in excitement to finally be able to speak with somepony other than her sister.

Finally, an earth pony with a straw hat on his head came into Luna's line of sight. He stepped forth to the end of the long carpet leading up to her throne and bowed down.

"Salvē," he greeted, using the common language of the land.

"Please, speak to us in our tongue," Princess Luna replied, using the royal voice.

Back then, the ponies expected of her to speak like this. After Celestia and Luna defeated Discord, they were praised and worshipped as goddesses. Luna constantly had to maintain a divine and powerful appearance to not insecure the ponies in their perspective on the princesses and to ensure them that they were capable rulers for the land. Along with this, Luna also had to insist on the ponies using her language when they wished to speak to her. Everything else would appear as if she stepped down from her unreachable heights and divinity.

"Oh, right. Forgive me, Princess. I came to ask for more land to grow my crops," the farm pony spoke.

Luna sighed in disappointment innerly. Of course. The only times when a pony actually came to her, it was due to it searching out the wrong princess.

"What you ask for concerns the sun and daylight. You must speak to our sister for this matter," the demi-goddess of darkness replied.

"Ah... thank you, Princess," the colt spoke and turned back around.

As soon as he was out of sight, Luna hung her head again. For a long time already, her sister was the only one talking to her. But even she only came to Luna when they needed to make decisions.

That was okay, though, Luna figured. Pretty much all activities and celebrations were held during the day, so she had a lot to do. Just like the rest of Equestria, the bright demi-goddess had to work from the moment she woke up until she returned to bed.

Alicorns don't need free time or hobbies. They can work without the need for a break and rarely ever get bored. But still, Luna figured these permanent expectations put on her sister were the main reason she had become so... well, bad mooded towards her.

Celestia and Luna used to be very close. But since they had taken over responsibility for Equestria, daytime and nighttime, sun and moon, they found themselves getting pulled apart of each other. But that was just how things were, Luna kept telling herself. It was all for a greater good.

The princess of the Night got up from her throne and began wandering through the castle. Even the servants were sleeping by now and since there was no need for guards, it seemed like the castle had been abandoned and Luna was its last inhabitant.

Every last of her steps echoed across the seemingly endless halls and turns. Luna tried not to think of how depressing it was that the only signs of life during the night were from herself, but it just underlined her loneliness too much to be ignored entirely.

Finally, she reached the balcony. The dark demi-goddess put her front hooves on the banister. The wind blew gently across her face with a pleasant coolth while she gazed up to her greatest masterpiece, her night sky.

For a while now, she kept trying to improve it furthermore. But each night, it became more difficult. Everything was just arranged perfectly. But somehow, Luna still felt like something was missing. Maybe another nebular? Another galaxy? Or should she maybe create another supernova in the far, far distance?

As she kept pondering for more than an hour, she suddenly had a strike of inspiration. Of course! What was still missing was a final detail! Something that just stuck out, similar to the moon, but far not as dominant!

Luna concentrated her magic and sent a dark blue beam up into the sky. Moments later, a new star appeared, right in the center of the night sky. It was brighter than all other stars and Luna gave it a special ability.

She figured that ponies should have an easy way to find their way in the night, without the need of a compass. So, she made this star always indicate where north is. She also instantly had a name for it in mind: the polestar.

The princess of the Night smiled a bit, very satisfied with her work. The polestar added perfectly to the night sky and also had a very useful purpose.

She immediately looked down to the city below, hoping somepony might have seen the change, but the smile on her face quickly vanished again as she realized all lights were out and nopony was on the streets.

Below her was Everfree, the capital of Equestria. A giant city with thousands of inhabitants. During day, it was quite a noisy place. Ponies constantly keep walking the streets, transporting goods around or making arrangements with other ponies. But now that it was night, it seemed like the city had become deserted.

In Luna's opinion, that was a shame, though. At night, the city was far more beautiful than during the day. The gentle blue light of the moon and the soft shades of the stone and wood houses mixed perfectly, making the city appear as if it was made of an unknown blue and black material. The overall purple aura of the night sky only enhanced this feeling furthermore.

But it seemed like Luna was the only one able to appreciate this sight. All the citizens were asleep and none of them even thought of looking outside. Sometimes, the demi-goddess of darkness liked to imagine how the city would look like if a few widely scattered torch lights would be glowing and one or two ponies would be still roaming the streets.

Luna sighed in longing for company. All she really needed was somepony to just be with her. Nothing more. She didn't care too much about nopony appreciating her work or even trying to see the world as she did. But she just couldn't take being this isolated.

Sometimes, she felt like being a ghost. A creature nopony was able to see or hear. Wherever she went, every being was already sleeping. It didn't matter if she came early or late, the ponies would go to sleep as soon as the sun set and get up again as soon as it rose again.

For a moment, Luna toyed with the idea to wander through the city and maybe peek into one or two windows, simply to see if she truly wasn't the only living thing in this world. But then she remembered that she still had work to do.

The dark demi-goddess slowly went back to her throne room. There was still a lot of paperwork to be done. This was pretty much the only thing Luna actually did. Paperwork. Mostly just conflicts between ponies she had to settle, changes of landownership she had to approve of or big transactions she needed to give authority. The only reason she even got this was because Celestia had so much to do, she couldn't handle all the paperwork herself.

The last time she got a real letter was more than a hundred years ago. It almost felt like, even though the ponies knew she was here, they had already forgotten about her.

But, again, Luna talked it down. One day, when Equestria would be fine again, they would start exploring the night and come to remember her, she kept telling herself.

The princess of the Night sat back down on her throne and continued with the paperwork. After three hours, she was done. Yet, the night was still far from being over.

Having nothing else to do, Luna went to the castle archives to do some magic studies and furtherly advance her skills and knowledge. But since she did that every night, Luna ran short on books she hadn't read at least four times by now. So, it is just understandable that, whenever a new book published, it was the event of the day to her. What else would be there for her to look forward to? She had nopony to talk to. Nopony to share her feelings with.

No. Luna was all alone. The only being awake in all of Equestria during the night. Simply changing her sleeping habits wouldn't work either. She _is_ the demi-goddess of darkness, night and the moon after all! She would not be able to endure constantly being awake during the day.

Finally, it was time for Luna to lower the moon again and make space for the dawn. The ponies had to get ready for another day of heavy labour.

The dark demi-goddess got up again and wandered all across the castle to Celestia's throne room. Her sister was awake already.

This act of exchanging heavenly bodies was such a daily routine to both of them by now that they didn't even greet each other and simply closed their eyes while their horns began to glow. Moments later, the moon disappeared and the sun rose up instead.

Dawn and sunset had become the only two moments in the day the two sisters met by now. Before they saved Equestria, Celestia used to stay up late for Luna occasionally and Luna in return sometimes spent a part of the day with her. But with all this work going on now, this was no longer possible.

"Did you make up your mind about the cutie mark spell?" Celestia wondered.

"I suppose it would be a good idea. But maybe you should ask the subjects first if they agree to this," Luna answered, causing her sister to roll her eyes a bit.

"You know, you could ask them yourself. You got all night to speak to them. It's not like you do a whole lot anyway, considering how much time you spent in the archives," the bright demi-goddess insisted.

"But, sister..." Luna started, but got interrupted by Celestia.

"No buts. You know how busy I am. All I'm asking for is a simple favor. Don't tell me you can't even help me with that," she countered sharply.

Luna just didn't know what to say or how to explain this to her in a way so she would understand and believe her. Celestia was so deep into her work and so focused on the subjects of Equestria, she just couldn't see what Luna was going through.

Without saying another word, Luna simply turned around, getting ready to walk to her bed chamber.

"Have a nice day, sister," she spoke before leaving.

So ended another night for Luna. Nothing changed. It was like every other: Empty, lonely, depressing.

But Luna stood strong. She wouldn't complain when she knew the ponies were going through much worse things, like starvation and diseases. She had no right to complain, Luna kept telling herself. She had to keep her head up and continue being the symbol of power, hope and salvation the ponies expected her to be. Yet, she had no idea how much longer she could endure this.


	2. Stage 2: Hearing Voices

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

"It looks like creating the cutie mark spell was one of the best decisions we have made so far, Luna! It still surprises me to see how quickly the ponies accepted this mark as part of their personality!" Celestia announced in a pleased tone.

"Well... that does not surprise me at all. We even went so far as to cast the spell on ourselves, so it is no wonder the ponies accept it," Luna stated.

"Anyway, I'm glad to say that the recovery of Equestria has been boosted quite a bit due to the cutie marks. It fills me with so much joy to see how happy my subjects are. They talk about their cutie mark, what it means and it helps them organize much better. By now, we do not even need the help of every last pony anymore. Some of our subjects have started looking for ways to live out their professions in public service. I heard they are planning an excavation on a mountain not far from here," Celestia spoke happily.

"I see... um... sister... is there any chance we might... be able to spend some time together?" Luna asked carefully.

"Oh, Luna. You know I am constantly occupied. When do you suppose I would be able to find the time for leisure activities?" the bright demi-goddess asked back.

"Perhaps... you could just give yourself that time... just an hour if even... I... I just miss you, sister..." the Princess of the Night spoke lowly.

"Come on now, Luna. We both are immortal. We have unlimited time. The subjects of Equestria do not. They are more important right now. You will just have to get over the fact that I can not be with you before Equestria has fully recovered, which will be in a few hundred years," Celestia stated.

"A few hundred... it... it already has been a few hundred since-" Luna started again but got interrupted by her sister.

"Really now, Luna. You have to stop being so selfish. Equestria is suffering! Our subjects are suffering! Do you not think that helping them rise out of their misery is more important than sharing a late night tea together?" Celestia asked sharply.

"I... guess you are right... Forgive me..." the dark demi-goddess apologized lowly.

Princess Celestia sighed lightly in frustration. She wondered if her sister will ever stop asking. Nearly every night, she kept on requesting the same things over and over again.

The Princess of the Sun turned around, aiming to leave and go to her bed chamber.

"Celestia... one last thing," Luna requested solicited.

"What now, Luna?" her sister replied, a bit harsh and annoyed in tone.

"How... how much time has passed since we created the cutie mark spell?" The dark demi-goddess wondered.

"About fifty years I would say," Celestia replied.

This answer shocked Luna a bit. But much stronger than shock, she felt deep a sadness filling her heart.

"Fifty years already..." she spoke to herself.

Celestia did not react anymore. She just continued walking, until she was out of Luna's throne room.

Fifty years had passed since the Princess of the Night had her last conversation with one of the subjects. This conversation just now also was the longest Luna had with her sister in years. Usually, time would feel as if it was passing by with enormous speed to an immortal entity such as her. But everything seems to go so slowly when you are lost in isolation.

In the past years, Celestia spent even more time with the ponies of Equestria and disregarded her sister's needs further, causing Luna to start losing track of time. By now, the demi-goddess of darkness was about to drown in her loneliness and desperation. With the way everything was developing, it was clear things will only get even worse for her.

It could not go on like this anymore. Princess Luna just couldn't take it. She had to act, but what could she do? She could hardly likely force anypony to stay awake during the night with her.

If nopony in all of Equestria was willing to stay with her, then she just had to _create_ a pony simply for this purpose, Luna figured. Just one single pony. That would be enough.

Since she obviously could not do this the natural way, because it would damage her reputation as a pure and almighty being and because there simply was no pony that even noticed her, she had to do this the arcane way.

Technically speaking, it could work. Luna knew a couple of ten thousand magic books by heart due to her spending so much time in the archives and of course, she had a lot more highly advanced knowledge of magic than most normal unicorns. But there was a huge difference between creating a tiny glowing spot on a purple sky and creating a fully functional, breathing, living and thinking creature.

Still, it wouldn't stop her from at least trying. Luna was just too desperate. She felt that, if her situation would not change soon, she wouldn't even know what to do anymore.

The demi-goddess of darkness made her decision. Tonight, she would get her duties done as quickly as possible and begin her research on how to artificially create a pony.

Nearly twelve years later, Princess Luna was finally ready. To maximize her chances, she researched every kind of magic known to ponies. Due to this, she was able to create a unique magic rune, which should lead to the desired result once it was imbued with her magic.

As the sun started to set, Luna woke up. Tonight, it would happen. Tonight, as soon as her sister went to sleep, Luna would seal off her throne room and draw her magic rune on the floor.

The demi-goddess of darkness hadn't been this excited for a very long time. She put all her hopes into this one, highly complex spell and was absolutely sure it would work. For a while now, she had been wondering how this artificial pony would look like, what race and gender it would become and what she would name it. Ultimately, Luna decided to wait with giving it a name until it actually stood before her.

The princess of the Night left her bed chamber and aimed straight for her throne room. As usual, all servants already retreated to rest. But this time, Luna did not care too much about that. She had plans after all.

As she entered her hall made of dark stone, she saw her sister waiting for her already. As always, they simultaneously used their powers to exchange sun and moon without even greeting each other. It was until afterwards that Celestia tossed in some quick informations while heading back outside.

"The excavation made an interesting discovery. The mountain they were researching is filled with a huge crystal cave system. The excavators ask us for permission to gather them. I think, if we start mining and selling these gemstones, we could bring Equestria back to its former wealth and glory," she spoke.

"Then we shall grant them permission," Luna replied.

"You mean _you_ will grant them permission. You have all night to do the paperwork. I need to rest and I expect you to be done at sunrise," Celestia objected.

Luna did not reply. She just nodded mutely, although her sister wasn't even looking at her and half out of her throne room. Honestly, she didn't even care about the fact that, once again, Celestia only saw a way to get rid of extra work in her own sister. This change may have made her delay her plan by maybe an hour, but it did not change her determination.

Finally. The last word was written and the orders were complete. Now, Luna could finally do what she had planned for years.

Using her dark magic, she made the large door leading to her chamber close, covered all windows and sealed the whole room to make it soundproof. She figured that this spell might turn out quite noisy.

Now, she let a piece of charcoal lift into the air. Luna trembled in excitement, making it difficult for her to draw the rune on the floor precisely. She had to keep it together. Rune magic was known to be very unforgiving about even tiny mistakes. If she messed this up, the spell could turn out malfunctional.

After ten minutes of carefully drawing each line and double-checking them, the rune was done. It was so huge that it just barely fit into the whole throne room and so complex that a bystander, who was not familiar with rune magic, would mistake it for artwork.

Luna started getting very excited now. In just a few moments, her loneliness would end. Not able to wait any longer, she stepped in front of the rune and closed her eyes. Her horn began to glow in a blue light, followed by a blue beam striking the rune in its center.

Directly after, the lines of the rune started giving off a black fog, quickly rising up and gathering in the center. More and more darkness clustered together at one spot, creating a large, black, rotating sphere that continuously accelerated as it grew.

Luna grinned happily. Everything seemed to work as expected. Since she wished to have a companion during the night, she needed to use her darkness and dark powers to create a nocturnal pony. In just a few moments, the sphere should start forming legs, a neck, a head and a tail.

But suddenly, the spell ended. The stream of darkness coming out of the rune aborted and the black sphere stopped rotating, just levitating in the center of the room.

Luna was shocked. This was not supposed to happen. Did she make a mistake? Was there an error in her calculation? Or did she really mess up the rune somewhere?

The demi-goddess of darkness checked the rune very carefully and made some recalculations. No. Everything was perfect. Everything was supposed to run smoothly. There was no reason why the spell failed.

Luna's glance wandered to the levitating ball of concentrated darkness in the center of her room. For some reason, she couldn't help but feel sorry. This dark ball was supposed to become a pony, _her_ pony. The most literal child Luna could get. Now that the spell failed, this sphere rather seemed like an aborted fetus to her. A thought that brought her close to grief.

The princess of the Night dropped her gaze to the floor. She was so sure this spell would work. This was her last resort to ever find a way out of this loneliness. She now had no idea what to do anymore.

"Why..." she started speaking to herself. "Why must everypony ignore me? Why must they all shun the darkness? What have I ever done to deserve this?"

Luna closed her eyes. The memories of several hundred years ago came back to her. Oh how much the ponies had cheered for her after Celestia and she had defeated Discord. Oh how much they adored and praised her. But these times went by very quickly. Just ten years later, the ponies started to avoid the night. After sixty years, they began to focus way more on her sister. A hundred years later, Luna already became reduced to the secretary of Celestia. Everything just got worse and worse.

"All I long for is company. Why is it that this is asked too much for? Why can I not experience the same happiness everypony else has?" Luna asked herself loudly.

Her expression slipped more and more into one of desperation and sorrow. But on the inside, a different feeling ignited: Anger.

She was angry at the subjects of Equestria for disregarding her. She was angry at her sister for ignoring her desperation and mendicancy. If only there was a way to make them pay and see what they all had done to her.

"Damn them! Damn these ponies! Damned be my sister!" Luna shouted.

As soon as she finished speaking, she stomped hard on the ground in frustration and desperation. As her hoof hit the magic rune, it reacted violently. The black charcoal lines suddenly turned red and sent strong red beams into the black levitating sphere. A split of a second later, it too turned red, followed by a massive explosion of red darkness.

After Princess Luna regained consciousness, she realized that the rune, the sphere and the red darkness were gone. It was as if they had just vanished. Or was this all a dream? Did they ever even exist?

"Good evening"

The unfamiliar female voice brought Luna out of her thoughts and caused her to get up, pose royally and look around in confusion.

"Who is there?" she spoke in the royal tone, expecting a pony to be somewhere.

"I do not have a name," the voice replied.

Luna failed to determine the source of the voice. It sounded like it came from everywhere.

"Stop hiding, child! Step forth!" she demanded.

"I can't. And I am not one of your subjects, Luna," the voice replied.

This confused the dark demi-goddess even more. What did she mean by she can't? How is she not a subject of Equestria?

Suddenly, an idea shot through Luna's head. Could it be? Could the spell have worked after all?

"Are you... have I created you?" Luna asked in normal volume.

"Yes," the voice replied.

Luna gasped a bit and started smiling widely with open mouth, tears of happiness filling her eyes. She did it! She created an artificial pony! Now, she would never have to be alone again!

"Oh my! I can not believe it! Where are you? Please, do not be afraid! Show yourself to me!" Luna requested happily.

"I can't, as I already said. I do not have a body," the voice answered.

"W... what do you mean you have no body?" the princess of the Night wondered.

"I do not have a body. Not even a soul. I am inside you. Your mind, to be exact," the voice replied.

The happy expression on Luna's face vanished and became replaced by one of stun and bewilderment.

"Inside my mind?" Luna asked again.

"Yes. I need you to survive. Since I do not have a soul, I need yours to exist," the voice explained.

"If you have no body and no soul, then what are you?" Luna asked.

"There is no description for what I am, since you just created me," the voice replied.

"Well in that case, we should first try to determine what you are. You seem to be sentinent and rather intelligent. Please, try to describe what you are as well as you can," Luna requested.

"The closest thing I can be compared with is a spirit, although even that does not fit very well. I was created from the deepest depths of your mind. Your most secret wishes and desires. I exist, but can hardly be called a living being," the voice described.

"Hm... a spirit... a creature created from the depths of my mind... how would the subjects of Equestria name such a being... Let's see. 'Manis' mean 'spirit' or 'ghost' in their language. 'De' means 'down' or 'below', as in from somewhere deep. Putting it together the way they speak... that would make you a... de manis," Luna inferred.

"So this is what you wish to name what I am?" the voice asked.

"Yes. It sounds the most fitting," the demi-goddess of darkness replied.

"Then I shall be known as the de manis from now on," the voice agreed.

Luna smiled again. Although this was not exactly what she had planned, she still got what she wanted. The princess of the Night was no longer alone.

"And what shall my name be?" the voice wondered.

"Hm... you are a pretty mysterious being. Your voice also sounds pretty strong and dark. Maybe something powerful and fierce, possibly even spooky would be suiting you. Let me think for a moment..." Luna spoke.

While thinking, she slowly went over to her throne and sat back down on it. Several seconds later, she made a suggestion.

"What do you think about Nightmare Moon?" Luna wondered.

"If you think it will fit me, then this shall be my name," the voice replied.

"I think it is great!" Luna explained.

"Then it is decided. From now on, I am Nightmare Moon, the de manis," the voice agreed.

The princess of the Night closed her eyes and smiled widely. Although she could not see Nightmare Moon or be with her in any physical way, Luna still had a companion now. The hundreds of years of isolation had come to an end.

"What do you wish to do, Luna?" Nightmare Moon asked.

"Talk. I just want to talk with you. Nothing more. I haven't been able to speak with any creature for such a long time," Luna requested.

"Then we shall talk," Nightmare Moon agreed.

From this night forth, the demi-goddess of darkness and the de manis kept on having prolonged conversations. To Luna, everything seemed to be fine now. But the opposite was true.

This was just the starting shot for a new era of horror and series of unimaginable catastrophes.


	3. Stage 3: First Signs

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

"Please, Princess Celestia!" the orange stallion pleaded. "We were the ones who discovered the crystal caverns in the first place!"

"Preposterous!" the cream colored mare protested. "If it weren't for us and our families, not a single crystal would have been mined by now! You owe all the labour to us!"

"Silence please, my little ponies!" Celestia finally broke into the debate using the royal voice. "This arguing brings us nowhere! We have been debating over this situation for hours already and have come to many points we all were agreeing with. I am not willing to begin all over because neither of you can see that this was a combined effort of both of you! Let me resume the conditions."

The present ponies bowed down to the bright demi-goddess as a symbol of apology, then they nodded in agreement.

"The crystal caverns are part of Equestria, therefore they belong to the land. But for the discovery of the caverns, the excavators get their percentage on the bits earned from selling the crystals. Same do the crystal miners, for it is their hard labour that even brings them to the surface." Celestia resumed.

"But what about the traders? They are blocking the way to the mines with all their tends!" the orange stallion asked.

"I see but one solution for this problem. We must found a new city, directly at the mountain. The excavators shall manage the city, while the crystal miners and the traders are free to set home in it. Do you agree with these terms?" Celestia suggested.

"A brilliant idea, your majesty! The miners would finally be living in proper homes again without the need to travel a good hundred miles! Of course, the crystal miner department agrees!" the cream colored mare agreed happily.

"Under these circumstances, the excavators also agree! Managing the city will ensure we get our share of the profit and helps us organize the project better!" the orange stallion confirmed.

"Then it is decided. I will make arrangements to start the construction of this city. Your part of the deal is to think of a name for it. Do not forget, my little ponies. The foundation of Equestria was only possible because enemies put their differences behind them and started cooperating. Only together, you were able to maintain this land for such a long time. So, I wish for you to think of a name together. I am looking forward to hear your decision," Celestia declared.

"We thank you a thousand times for your patience and kindness, your majesty!" both ponies spoke while bowing down. Then, they turned around and left the throne room.

Celestia maintained a royal and mighty appearance until they both were gone. Then, she sighed in exhaustion and started to relax. Instantly, a green earth pony mare with brown mane and light blue eyes wearing a maid dress and glasses popped out of a corner, quickly carrying a tray with a tea set on it to her.

"Here! Freshly brewed herbal tea! This will help you, Princess!" she spoke happily and started pouring some tea into a cup.

"Thank you most sincerely, Emerald Dream. Just what I needed. You are by far the most attentive of my maids," Celestia replied in her regular voice, using her magic to let the cup levitate up to her.

Emerald Dream smiled widely. "I'll do whatever I can for our beloved princess!"

Celestia, too, smiled a bit, then closed her eyes and took the first relishing sip from the cup. The demi-goddess of the sun loved all her subjects. But Emerald Dream was in a special position. She was the only pony around which Celestia didn't have to pose mighty, divine and wise. She could be herself when she was present.

"Five hours. Good gosh, Princess. Some ponies just don't seem to learn from our past. Five hours of debating over something so silly as money and crystals. You must be drained," Emerald commented.

"Well I do admit that this was rather draining. But it was necessary and in the end absolutely worth it. Of course, they only see the temporary advantages of the foundation of a city directly at a newly opened crystal mine. But I can already sense how the things will develop for this city, hundreds of years ahead. It is bound to flourish," Celestia replied.

"How so, if I may ask?" the maid wondered.

"It will attract ponies from all over Equestria, who are searching for work. The construction will take a very long time, but it will never run out of income. So the development is ensured. Since the main income for the city is the trading of crystals and gemstones, jewellers, goldsmiths and artists from all over the world will be drawn to this city. Due to the special location, they will quickly find inspiration and start making crafts for the city. I can see it already: this future city will become the jewel of Equestria," the bright demi-goddess explained.

"Princess Celestia! You are a genius!" Emerald exclaimed, deeply impressed.

"Thank you, my dear maid," Celestia replied, smiling lightly.

"This is so exciting! Oh I hope I will live long enough to see this city bloom!" the maid kept speaking.

Again, Celestia smiled lightly and took another sip from her cup. Then, she placed it aside and used her magic to let the sun go down very slowly.

"Oh! Is it evening already?" Emerald Dream wondered.

"Yes it is. Another very exhausting day comes to an end. You can leave now. I will let you know when I need you," the princess of the Day replied.

"As you wish, Princess!" the maid spoke happily and turned around to leave.

Somehow, Emerald Dream always managed to make Celestia smile. She was always so happy and full of energy, it was a real inspiration for her. It were small things like these that kept the bright demi-goddess fueled to go through all this hard work she had to face every day.

Celestia's tasks as the ruler of Equestria were very time-consuming and mentally draining. Each day was a challenge and she had to face her subjects with infinite patience. After the many years of Discord's leadership, they forgot how to trust each other and cooperate. They became trained to only care for themselves in order to survive in a realm of chaos. Now, it was all up to Celestia to reestablish the high standards this land once used to be known for.

But it seemed like her efforts were finally coming to fruition. Just recently, she received the first offers and invitations from other empires. Equestria was slowly regaining global acknowledgement. Yet, there was still a long way to go before the land would be what it once used to be again.

All the land's burdens rested solely on Celestia's shoulders. Her word had nationwide influence. Every decision she made was speaking for itself and delivering a certain message, which she always needed to make sure was the correct one. A message that clearly stated that she only wished the best for pony-kind and the land. She needed to make sure that the ponies kept believing in her. They needed her guidance after lacking any for several hundred years.

So, of course, Celestia was under a lot of stress. There was so much she had to supervise. So much she had to manage. Her entire day consisted of nothing else but work. The last time she found a moment to do whatever she wanted was so long ago, she couldn't even remember.

Not even now that it was evening and all audiences and negotiations for today were over did she find a moment to relax. Like most things, the bureaucracy of the entire land also depended on her by a vast majority. Like every day, she spent the most of the time dealing with her upset subjects and only found the time to do paperwork in the evening. As usual, she would be sitting in front of large piles of paper for the rest of the day, trying to get as much done as she could before she would get too tired to think clearly anymore. Then, she would hand the rest to her sister.

At times, Celestia envied Luna. She had so little to do during the night that she actually could follow her hobbies for hours, like reading through the castle archives. The princess of the Day really couldn't understand why Luna was constantly complaining about being alone for such a long time. If there was a way she could change places with her little sister for even a day, she would instantly take this opportunity. It would be such a pleasant change for Celestia to just relax for a while and be only by herself, without having her subjects crowding her every day, all day long.

But of course, that was not possible. Luna belonged to the night like Celestia belonged to the day. This was their destiny and despite all the stress Celestia was experiencing, she still loved her subjects and cared a huge deal for every last of them. This is why she forced herself though all the efforts each day.

Three hours passed and finally, Celestia began to get tired. As always, she had been working from dawn to dusk and all that was left for her to do now was to get some rest to prepare for the next day. But at least, she could see her sister quickly before she went to bed.

In the last three years, Luna started to change. While she seemed depressed for hundred years, she now suddenly became rather cheerful again. Celestia didn't know what caused her to suddenly change and she just didn't have the time to ask back, but it was a development that surely pleased her to see. She only considered that Luna finally became aware of her bad attitude and found ways to deal with her apparent problems.

Indeed, Luna found a solution to her loneliness. But Celestia was completely unaware of how much _she_ would have to pay for this solution in just near future.

As the bright demi-goddess entered her sister's throne room, Luna was already waiting for her. Along with the change of her attitude came a change in her behaviour. While for hundreds of years before, Celestia had to wait for Luna to get up and ready to perform her duties, she now always was there already when Celestia came after a long and exhausting day of work. This change even went so far as that Luna now greeted her with a smile whenever she met her sister.

So she did this time as well. Celestia only smiled back, too tired and exhausted to get herself involved in a long conversation and as always, they both exchanged sun and moon without speaking a word.

The princess of the Day was about to leave, when she noticed a black tear trail on her sister's cheek.

"Um, Luna. I think your makeup is running," she informed her sister.

Luna reached up to her eye and then looked at her hoof, as well surprised to see a black liquid now sticking to it.

"I suppose I overdid it then. Thank you for telling me, sister," Luna replied calmly and smiled a bit while wiping the tear away.

This already was confirmation enough to Celestia that everything was alright with her sister. She really didn't have the energy left to have a long emotional conversation now. The bright demi-goddess was just too tired after the events of today and badly needed some rest.

After her sister had left the room again, Luna's face changed to one of confusion and she wiped her eyes a second time.

"Gosh, why am I crying? And why are these tears black? I have no reason to cry! Since you are around, Nightmare, I'm finally happy again!" she spoke to herself.

"Those are not _your_ tears, Luna. Actually, they are not tears at all," Nightmare Moon spoke.

"What do you mean? Do you have something to do with that?" the dark demi-goddess wondered.

"Yes. They come from me. Since the night you created me, you allowed me to keep growing stronger and stronger. Now, I am slowly starting to take physical shape," the de manis explained.

"Physical?! Does that mean you are turning into an actual creature?" Luna asked, quite excited to hear of this development.

"It seems like it. Maybe one day, we will be able to see each other face to face," Nightmare Moon replied.

"That would be so wonderful! The world's first de manis, walking with me during the night for everypony to see and talk to! What a beautiful thought!" Luna fantasized happily.

"For everypony to see and talk to, Luna? Did you not say that all ponies sleep during the night?" Nightmare Moon wondered.

Now, the happy expression on Luna's face disappeared and her depression returned. With Nightmare Moon around, she finally found a way to distract herself of the fact that, besides this voice accompanying her, nopony else was paying attention to her. But still, she kept finding things that reminded her of her situation.

"Yes... you are right, Nightmare. There is not a single exception to this either, otherwise we would have met at least one pony in the last three years," Luna replied in a sad tone.

After the princess of the Night said this, Nightmare Moon suddenly became silent, catching the confusion of Luna.

"Nightmare? Hello?" she called.

No response was given. Slowly, Luna felt how fear spread through her body. In all the three years she had been living with Nightmare Moon so far, she never suddenly became mute like this before. Did something go wrong? Did she disappear?

"Nightmare! Please! Speak to me! Don't leave me alone!" Luna called out, louder this time and starting to breathe faster.

While the dark demi-goddess slowly started to panic over the fact that the de manis wasn't replying to her, Nightmare Moon made a discovery. She understood that Luna depended on her. She wouldn't be able to endure it if Nightmare Moon would turn against her. From this moment on, as the de manis realized she could control Luna, things began to change.

"I can not believe you let them get away with this," Nightmare Moon suddenly spoke again, a bit of anger in her tone.

Luna sighed shortly in relief as she started hearing the voice in her head speak again, but became a bit shocked after she realized what Nightmare Moon just said.

"Ge... get away with what, Nightmare?" Luna asked back.

"With treating you like this. You are the co-ruler of Equestria! Not only that, but a demi-goddess, too! You deserve to be worshipped and praised! Yet, not a single one of your subjects even thinks of you!" the de manis explained.

"Well... they are having a really hard time, you know... I do not blame them. They are struggling for survival and focus on reconstructing the land," Luna stated.

"That is a poor excuse, Luna. A very poor one. For how long are they rebuilding Equestria by now?" Nightmare Moon asked.

"For... a few hundred years..." the demi-goddess of darkness replied.

"A few hundred years. When was the last time you had been speaking to one of your subjects?" the voice kept asking.

"More than fifty years..." Luna answered again.

"It didn't tell you anything about how things were developing for the land, didn't it?" the de manis wondered.

"No..." Luna replied, starting to get depressed again.

"Then what makes you so sure the land is still so much under reconstruction that they do not have time to worship you? How can you be sure they haven't simply forgotten you?" Nightmare Moon wanted to know.

"No! It can not be! They can not have just forgotten me! Just recently, sister informed us about-" the dark demi-goddess started, but found herself interrupted.

"Your sister is not a valid argument!" Nightmare Moon spoke, harshly for the very first time. "If at least your sister would care enough about you, you would not have felt the need to create me! Speak honestly, Luna! When were you last able to inform yourself of the development of the land personally?"

"A... long time ago... a very long time ago..." Luna answered, meekly.

Now, Nightmare Moon took a moment of silence to let this sink in to make Luna aware of how bad her situation truly was. In fact, the dark demi-goddess never thought of things like that before. Finally, Nightmare Moon started speaking again.

"Think of all the things you do for the ponies. Think of all the lullabies you have written, yet the only creature that ever heard them was me. Think of the hard work you put into making the night enjoyable for all creatures of this world, yet nopony cares about it. But mostly, think of the great risks you have taken to save the ponies of this land. _You_ faced Discord! _You_ defeated him! How do the ponies repay you for all this?" she asked.

Now, Luna understood. Nightmare Moon was right. The ponies of Equestria were very ungrateful to her. No, not only they, but even her own sister.

Her expression changed again. Now, the dark demi-goddess looked angered.

"By disrespecting and ignoring me," Luna replied.

Again, the de manis became silent for a good minute to let Luna think over this knowledge. After the minute had passed, the voice made the first suggestion she had ever given to Luna.

"We have to change this," she spoke in a serious tone. "We have to stop allowing them to ignore us. If we do not take action, nothing will ever happen. We will only end up becoming a forgotten legend, lost between the pages of history."

"Yes. You are right, Nightmare. So very right. I allowed myself to get suppressed and ignored for far too long. As you stated correctly, I am a demi-goddess! I deserve more! I deserve better! I will not stay hidden in the darkness any longer! I will step into the moonlight and let everypony see that I still exist! Thank you, Nightmare. Thank you for opening my eyes," Luna replied.

As soon as she finished speaking, another black tear rolled out of Luna's left eye and down her face.

"This is what you created me for, Luna. Allow me to guide you and I will promise you that everything will change. Absolutely everything," the de manis swore.


	4. Stage 4: Manic Behaviour

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

In the following month, Luna's behaviour changed again. She suddenly became very demanding, even much more than before, at least from Celestia's perspective. Nearly every night, she begged Celestia to arrange things so that the ponies were out at night at least for once. Though she never said why she was so much in panic and why she wished her big sister to go through all this unnecessary extra work.

The reason for this was Nightmare Moon. Her control over Luna kept increasing with every day that passed. By now, Luna allowed the de manis to guide her in most things. As a result, Nightmare Moon gained more and more power within a very short time.

The de manis deliberately evoked fears in Luna. Fears about being forgotten. Fears about being forced to spend the rest of eternity lost alone in her own darkness. But mostly, she made her see ponies increasingly more as ungrateful and worthless.

Even though these ideas were controverse to Luna's beliefs and actions, the voice inside her mind made her eat it all up and adapt the thoughts to her way of thinking. And although Celestia was not willing to force her subjects to stay awake late at night, despite the duties they would have to perform on the next day, simply so Luna could get her way, the demi-goddess of darkness would soon get her long awaited opportunities.

"Gah, these darn tessellated windows!" one of the many craftsman ponies of Castle Everfree complained. "Why does this glass never stay in the frames?"

"Am not really sure what we are doing wrong, but we need to repair this," another answered.

"But not today anymore. I haven't been able to eat all day and Princess Celestia is already letting the sun go down," the first one spoke.

"Oh, I don't want to anger her. We better get this done. I can't imagine she would like the idea of the cold wind blowing into the castle all night long," yet another stated.

"Are you serious? Don't you see how big this window is? Setting up the scaffolding alone will take us an hour! I got the feeling that if I don't find a place to lay down soon, I will just fall over!" a fourth pony countered.

"Look guys, I'm very tired too and I really don't want to work at night any more than you do," the second started. "Especially when we have such much work to do at the building site downtown tomorrow. But after all the princess has done for us, don't you think we should give her a little payback?"

"And if we don't do this tonight, when do you suppose would we find the time to get to it?" the third craftsman wondered.

"Agh, you are right there," the first one finally agreed with a sigh. "Then let's get this over with."

Luna was already wide awake and in her throne room before the sun even set. She looked stressed. Her eyes were bloodshot as if she hadn't been sleeping much for days, yet forced wide open and filled with black tears. Her pupils had shrunk to less than a quarter of their original size. But still, for some not quite understandable reason, she was grinning while she nervously walked up and down her throne room, breathing heavily in exertion.

"They have forgotten you, Luna. It is the truth," Nightmare Moon spoke.

"No. They can not. They just can not," the Princess of the Night whispered.

"It is a matter of fact, Luna. You can't deny it," the de manis kept on speaking.

"This is not true and I am going to prove it. All I need is to get my sister to agree," Luna kept telling herself.

"Stop being so blind, you fool! This is all your sister's fault! She is doing everything she can to hold you trapped and isolated here!" Nightmare Moon growled.

"N-no... she... she is just very busy with the subjects. That is all..." Luna disagreed meekly.

"She loves her subjects more than you, Luna! A lot more! Otherwise, she would realize what you are going through!" the voice nearly shouted at the dark demi-goddess.

Luna couldn't take it anymore. As she sat down on her throne and held her head with a sorrow filled expression, the black tears ran freely down her face.

"Please... stop, Nightmare... please..." she begged.

"A month ago, you said you finally were willing to open your eyes to the truth. You were lieing to me, Luna. You still refuse to see what is truly going on. After a whole month in which you even stepped down to _beg_ to your sister, she is still ignoring your needs and desperation. She refuses to let you meet ponies. What do you expect to happen, Luna? Do you think she will give in if you bother her long enough? Do you think such a thing is really necessary between sisters?" Nightmare Moon debated.

"I... I... I just want to meet somepony... I just want confirmation that I have not just become forgotten so badly..." Luna stated with a desperate tone in her voice.

Nightmare Moon was about to bring up more arguments when she could hear hoof steps approaching up the stairs to Luna's throne room through her ears. So instead, she made Luna wipe the tears out of her eyes, take a few controlled breaths to relax again and rub her eyes to make them return to normal.

"I assure you, Luna. Once you get to meet somepony, you will only find out that I was correct after all," Nightmare Moon spoke, just before Celestia entered.

Since the Princess of the Night started annoying her sister so much with her requests, Celestia always had a displeased look on her face when she had to come up to her sister's throne room. This time was no different and she immediately found her expression justified as Luna was about to start again.

"Sister. Please. All I ask for is one single night!" Luna pleaded.

Celestia rolled her eyes. By now, her pleading only provoked her.

"Give me _one plausible reason_ why I should do this to my subjects," Celestia growled.

"Is it not reason enough that I ask you to do this, sister? Is it not reason enough that I am begging you every single night?" Luna wondered.

"No! It is _not_! By all means, Luna. Your selfishness is bordering on ignorance!" Celestia disagreed with a very serious tone. "Right now, over a third of the workers of Everfree are occupied with the construction of the mountain city near the crystal caverns, which they decided to name Canterlot! Yet, that is just the smallest problem going on!

"Due to the after-effects of Discord's magic, there is a fatal blight creeping through the land! The ponies are starving and the medical support is still very poor throughout all of Equestria! A huge part of the land's population is too weak and sick to work, which only puts even more work on the rest!

"And do not get me started on the crime rates! Due to the food shortage, I get countless reports of theft, robbery and burglary every day! I honestly have enough to do with trying to somehow keep the land running while avoiding to let it fall to corruption!

"My subjects work even much harder than me! What I am forced to ask them to do can nearly be considered slavery! Yet, you have got nothing better to do than to demand even more from me _and_ them?"

"You... you do not understand, sister!" Luna spoke with a desperate tone, huffing speechlessly as she found it very hard to express herself. "I can not take it anymore! I really can not! Please, just a single pony! Just one!"

"I can not believe you, Luna! I just can not believe you!" Celestia began to shout.

Just as their conversation was about to escalate, another set of hooves could be heard running up the stairs. Moments later, a green maiden came rushing in with a scroll in her mouth. She stopped in front of Celestia and offered it to her.

"I'm sorry for bugging you so late, but I was told that this was urgent and you needed to get it as quickly as possible," Emerald Dream apologized as soon as Celestia's magic lifted the scroll out of her mouth.

"It is fine, my dear maid," the demi-goddess of the Day replied.

For a moment, Luna found herself speechless. She had been struggling with her sister for an opportunity to meet a pony for such a long time. Now, out of nowhere, one appeared just in front of her nose!

Emerald Dream finally turned around and realized that somepony else was in the room.

"Oh, hello!" she greeted.

"He...hello..." Luna replied, still a bit stunned of how suddenly this came to happen.

Emerald Dream had a baffled expression on her face as she eyed up the Princess of the Night. After a few seconds of analyzing her, she blinked a few times and spoke up again.

"Who are you?"

As soon as this question reached Luna, she suddenly felt like she had turned to stone. The shock solidified her body to the point where she even stopped breathing for several seconds.

"Ah, of course, you have never been here before at this hour. Emerald Dream, this is my sister Luna. Luna, this is my personal maid, Emerald Dream," Celestia introduced casually while reading the scroll.

"Your sister?! I didn't even know you have one!" Emerald spoke with a stunned expression.

Even much more stunned was the expression of Luna. The fact that she never even heard of the demi-goddess of darkness before shocked her so deeply, her heart skipped a beat.

"So what are you the princess of?" the maid asked curiously.

"The... the night..." Luna replied, still deeply shocked.

"Oooooooooh! So _you_ are the one I hear walking around the castle at night! I've been wondering!" Emerald commented.

This was too much. Luna finally found a way out of her petrification and slowly got up. With the same slow pace, she turned around to hide her expression from both her sister and her maid. While the black tears started flowing again, Luna made a sound that was a complete opposite to her feelings. She began to laugh lowly.

Her strange reaction caused Emerald Dream to tilt her head and look at Luna in confusion. Of course, she could not see the tears. So the fact that she turned away from her in order to laugh was just puzzling to her.

Celestia did not pay any attention to the scene that had just happened at all. She was too deeply sunken into the letter. After she finished reading, she rolled the paper up again and sighed.

"The griffon empire demands my attention again. Now of all times... Emerald Dream: Please take preparations. I will be leaving in the morning," Celestia explained.

"Yes. Of course, your highness. Goodbye, Princess Luna! Was nice to meet you!" the maid spoke before leaving the room again.

Finally, the demi-goddess of light noticed the strange behaviour of her sister.

"Luna? Are you okay?" she wondered.

The Princess of the Night stopped laughing. She needed three seconds to put herself together.

"Yes. I am fine. Perfectly fine," she lied with a surprisingly calm voice. It was so calm that it in fact actually was believeable.

"In that case, would you finally raise the moon then?" Celestia demanded a bit harshly.

Without any further comment, Luna's horn began to glow, soon followed by Celestia's. Now, the sun and the moon switched places.

After the way Luna had been acting, Celestia didn't even border to say goodnight and just left the room. As soon as she was out, Luna turned around again. Multiple black tear trails were seen on her face, her eyes were bloodshot and the pupils tiny again. The dark demi-goddess was so desperate now that she could only grin widely.

"I'm sorry, Nightmare," she apologized. "I am such an idiot. I should have listened and believed you all along."

"Emerald Dream has been living in the castle for years now. Yet, she never even knew you existed," the de manis resumed.

Luna began to cry and laugh at the same time. Desperation overwhelmed her mind while she got up again and slowly wobbled through the castle, not even having the physical strength left to walk properly.

The meeting with Emerald Dream ultimately confirmed Luna's worst nightmares to be true. She really had become forgotten. Nopony even remembers she ever existed.

This was the moment Nightmare Moon had been waíting for in the last few years. The demi-goddess of darkness was at a very unstable state of mind right now. She would be willing to hold onto any tiny thing she gave her. This was the perfect opportunity for her to start taking her over.

"Disrespectful ponies," Nightmare Moon spoke.

"Disrespectful ponies," Luna repeated.

"Ungrateful ponies," Nightmare spoke.

"Ungrateful ponies," Luna repeated.

"Despicable ponies," Nightmare spoke.

"Despicable ponies," Luna repeated.

"If they dare to forget us, we need to force them to remember. This will not go uncorrected, Luna. It is time to make them pay," the de manis suggested.

"Yes," Luna agreed.

"They will suffer much more than you did. Over centuries, you stored an incomparable hatred inside you. Now, it is time to unleash it," Nightmare Moon continued.

"Yes," Luna agreed again.

"Punish them, Luna. Let them feel our hatred," the voice finished.

"I will," the Princess of the Night confirmed.

After a while, she finally reached the balcony. Her insane eyes slowly wandered over the sleeping city below. What right did these ponies have to treat her like this? What right did they have to make her suffer so much? They needed to be taught a lesson they would never forget.

Her focus fell on a broken window a floor below her and on the other end of the castle. She could see a craftsman pony standing on a scaffolding, trying to replace the missing glass pieces. A sturdy looking rope was reliably tied to one end of the wooden structure, the loose end to the stallion's right front leg.

Tonight was a very fortune night for her. For over fifty years, Luna hadn't seen another pony. Now, she got to see two at the same night.

The grin on Luna's face grew wider. This was the perfect situation. Her sister was in deep sleep by now and so far away that she would not possibly notice anything. It shall begin here, she decided. It was time for her to start getting her revenge.

"Nightmare. I created a new lullaby. I think you may like it," Luna stated.

"Let me hear it," the de manis motivated.

The grin on Luna's face grew to surreal size while her eyes went as wide open as they could get. Trying to suppress a manic laughter, she began to sing.

"Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop," she started, staring at the unsuspecting stallion working on the window.

Suddenly, Luna's horn began to glow, creating a strong artificial breeze that squeezed itself through the gaps of the window.

"When the wind blows, the cradle will rock," she continued.

When the magical breeze entered, the worker did not suspect a thing. Since air is invisible, he also could not explain why the scaffolding suddenly started to shake.

"When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall," the Princess of the Night sang on.

The breeze violently tore away a few planks of wood and finally made one of the supporting legs of the scaffolding break. The whole structure tilted towards the window, causing the stallion to lose his balance and risked to fall through the damaged window.

Out of reflex, he grabbed the rope just before he fell against the glass. The window shattered noisily and the pony held tightly to the rope, desperately hoping it was strong enough to hold him. But as he fell, the rope suddenly started moving on its own. It wrapped itself around the stallion's neck.

As the rope reached its limit, a loud popping noise could be heard. A clear indicator that the pony's neck was broken.

"And down will come baby, cradle and all," Luna finished.

She kept on staring at the dead hanging pony and the shocked faces of the other workers after they realized what just had happened for a few moments longer, a deep satisfaction filling her. Then, she simply turned around and started walking back inside the castle, the huge grin still on her face and her eyes still overflowing with black tears.

"Well done, Luna," Nightmare Moon congratulated.


	5. Stage 5: Complete Insanity

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

"How could it come to that accident?" Celestia wondered in a bit of shock as she heard of the recent nightly events the next morning.

"W-w-we d-don't know... the... scaffolding j-just... collapsed... f-for no reason," one of the witnesses stuttered, still traumatized from the impressions.

The Princess of the Day was aghast. Every single one of her subjects was precious to her and like most of the staff in Castle Everfree, she knew the victim very well. He had a very friendly and deedy personality. His sudden death hit her quite hard.

"Your highness... we can't let the griffon empire wait," Emerald Dream reminded her carefully with condolence in her voice.

"I know, my dear maid... the death of a single pony must not be a reason for me to overthrow my plans," Celestia replied. "It looks like my sister finally gets her will. Emerald. If it is not too much to ask, I would like for you to assist and remind my sister of her duties."

"No problem at all, Princess! What do you want me to do?" the maid agreed.

"I want you to go to my sister at sundown and inform her that I will not be able to return in time to perform the exchange of sun and moon with her. We will have to do this synchronized over distance. Therefore, she shall begin to raise the moon at 10 PM. Next, I wish for you to come back to her at 4 AM to remind her that she needs to make way for the dawn. As for the rest of the day, you will be in charge for the castle," Celestia explained.

"Sure thing! Have a good journey, Princess!" Emerald Dream spoke.

The demi-goddess of the sun turned around and started walking. She was worried, but not because of Emerald Dream. Her concerns were because of Luna. For a while now, she started acting very irresponsible. Celestia couldn't even entrust her to be able to perform her duties anymore, which is why she sent her personal maid to her assistance.

Celestia just hoped that her sister wouldn't demand strange things from Emerald Dream. She was completely clueless of the events that would follow.

As the sun went low, Luna awoke from her slumber. Or rather what was left of Luna.

Everything she experienced and did yesterday was too much for her to handle. The shock, the desperation, the hate, the high expectation, her murder and the satisfaction it brought. A part deep inside her knew that what she had done was wrong in every possibly imaginable way. But it was far too small in comparison to her hatred, her craving for revenge and its pleasure to influence her.

By now, Nightmare Moon made up more than half of Luna's mind. Luna herself did not even realize that she had lost control and although she remembered her actions, she denied them. This only caused her to hide herself even deeper inside of what was left of her mind.

In the next hours, the de manis will gain full control over Luna's mind and body, reducing the demi-goddess of darkness to a tiny spot in the far back of her mind.

The large dark blue body lifted out of her bed, which was soaked in black tears. Luna did not even care about her appearance anymore. She just got on the way to her throne room without brushing her mane, tail or applying any makeup. On the way, she left behind a trail of black tear drops.

No thoughts were running in her mind. She was just sleepwalking in awake state, Nightmare Moon controlling her steps.

The de manis was patient. She did not want to ruin her chances and simply kept supporting Luna until she willingly entrusted her body to Nightmare Moon and retreated into her mind on her own. After what she made Luna do yesterday, it was only a matter of time now anyway.

"We will get our revenge," a mixed voice of Nightmare Moon and Luna spoke in the demi-goddess' head.

The notion brought a wicked grin to her face. Yes. Revenge. It seemed so appropriate in return for making Luna reduce to what she is now: a broken, fading personality whose only companion was a voice stuck in her head.

The Princess of the Night placed a front hoof on the large door to her throne room. But she hesitated to open it. Nightmare Moon could sense a presence on the other side. It was yet too early for her to be discovered. She did not have full control yet. So, she pushed Luna back in the foreground, letting her wipe away the black tears and relax her expression.

The door opened and Princess Celestia's sister entered the room. Emerald Dream sighed in elevation as she realized she came in time. The maid would have hated to wake her up.

"Ah! Good... eh... evening I suppose? Yes. Good evening, Princess!" she greeted warmly.

Luna entered without a comment and went straight to her throne. Though Emerald Dream kept grinning happily until she went right past her. The maid was a naive and overly cheerful one. She didn't mind the fact that the dark princess did not greet her back. But she did mind the expression she had on her face.

It was a really odd one in Emerald's opinion. She tried to look neutral, but... she wasn't. It seemed forced. As if she put all her strength into trying to keep this expression. This confused the maid so much that her trademark smile vanished from her face. She waited until Luna had sat down, then she delivered the message from Princess Celestia.

"Your sister can't be here to exchange sun and moon with you. I was told to inform you that you are supposed to raise the moon at 10 PM, which is in twenty minutes. At the end of the night, the moon is supposed to go down at 4 AM. I will come back to you when the time comes," Emerald explained.

Again, Luna remained mute. She didn't even look at the maid and just stared straight down the corridor to the stairs. Emerald Dream wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. Was the Princess of the Night always like that? She already expected that, since she is pretty much the exact contrast to her sister, she would be a lot different. But she did not expect something like _that_. Finally, the maid took a heart to speak up again.

"Is... is there anything I can do for you, Princess?" she wondered.

Luna slowly shook her head. At least she reacted now and proved that she was listening. But still, this was a very uncomforting situation. Somehow, Luna seemed to emit creepy vibes, as if there was something foreign and unnatural about her. Something that did not belong in this world. Emerald started feeling nervous.

"So... well... um... I'll get going then. I-if you need anything, just let me know!" the maid spoke and left the room, faster than she usually would.

As soon as Emerald Dream was gone, Luna lowered her head into her front hooves and began to cry. Moments later, her crying slipped into laughter.

"So ridiculous. This is so ridiculous," a mix of Luna and Nightmare Moon spoke in her mind. "Who do the ponies think they are to command us like this? Celestia claims that we are selfish. But we wonder: who is truly the selfish one? Us? Them? Or her?"

Luna slowly rose her head again. Within seconds, her front hooves had become covered in the black substance the de manis exuded through her eyes. The grin returned to her face as she stared at it.

"Trust me, Luna. Let me guide you. Let me control your body. I will make sure that your wishes will be granted," Nightmare Moon spoke in the demi-goddess' mind.

Luna tilted her head back until she was staring straight at the ceiling. The world seemed to spin around her, which only was even more amusing to her.

"You created me for this, Luna. You created me with your desperation and anger. Along with you, darkness itself is crying in fury. These selfish ponies, your selfish sister and that selfish light all enslaved you," the de manis continued.

The Princess of the Night kept on wobbling from left to right more and more until she ultimately couldn't keep her balance anymore and fell over. Then, she just kept laying there, grinning widely with bloodshot eyes, black tears flowing down her throne and breathing slowly.

"With my creation, darkness is delivering a message. It will no longer tolerate this treatment. Yours, as well as its own. I am here to give darkness a way to relief of its hatred, through you. I am the manifest of darkness' fury. Its evil and sinister side. For it cries for justice and punishment," Nightmare Moon explained.

Luna didn't know for how long she was laying there. It seemed like an eternity, but at the same time, like seconds. The more the de manis spoke, the further Luna retreated into her own mind, mutely agreeing with everything she said.

"We crave, Luna. We both crave for punishment. Our hunger for love and attention has become replaced with one for dread and horror. But we will not starve. Too rich is the menu presented to us. Let us feast, Luna. We will sate our appetite. We will bring terror to this world in a scale that will make Discord look like a harmless jester," Nightmare Moon suggested.

Luna's stomach started growling. Greedily, she licked over her teeth, only to realize that they suddenly became jagged and sharp. Her eyes wandered up to her horn and she realized she did this to herself with a spell, as she saw it glow.

"Sleep, Luna. Sleep and let me make your dreams come true. Allow me to give you your well deserved revenge," the de manis requested.

Luna's eyes slowly fell shut and she fell asleep. But just minutes later, she suddenly woke up again. She lifted her head and sat up again, eyeing up her body. Several more minutes later, a pony entered her throne room.

"Hi, Princess! I am here to remind you-" Emerald Dream started, but stopped immediately as she noticed the crazy expression on the dark demi-goddess' face.

Luna was staring at her with huge bloodshot eyes, tiny pupils and humongous grin with sharp teeth. As the door behind her suddenly slammed shut by magic, she realized she should have turned around and ran away while she still had the chance.

As soon as the royal carriage landed in front of Everfree Castle, Celestia jumped out of it and trotted inside the castle with an expression full of anger. It was 3 PM. The night should have ended many hours ago, yet the moon was still high up. As long as it remained there, the sun could not be raised.

By now, the entirety of Equestria was wide awake and heavily confused to still find themselves in nighttime.

On her way through the castle, Celestia's anger cooled off a bit and became replaced with worry as she realized that all the staff were missing. Confusion became added as she found strange black drops on the floor, leading to Luna's throne room.

The closer she got, the more she could find. Finally, the bright demi-goddess was just in front the door to Luna's throne room. She could hear strange noises coming from the other side. Gagging, breaking and dripping sounds. Moist squishing and rattling.

Celestia opened the door.

Luna was sitting on her throne, an expression of total insanity written on her face and covered in blood. Widely spread all across the room were the countless corpses of the staff, violently torn open, broken apart, partially eaten or nailed to the walls or ceiling with magical bolts. Their blood dyed the whole room into a terrible crimson.

In front of Luna hovered Emerald Dream. Her legs and jaw were broken, her glasses destroyed and a big glass shard stuck in her left eye. Her coat was burnt and her mane torn off, revealing the skull. She shook heavily in agony while Luna used another glass shard to make long slow cuts all across her body. Yet she was too weak and traumatized to give of any more than gagging and rattling sounds.

Celestia remained motionless and mute, staring in disbelief at her maid and sister with open mouth. After they both realized that the Princess of the Day was present, Luna decided to ram her horn into Emerald's right eye, quickly sliding in deeper and deeper.

The maid could only twitch one last time in pain. Then she just hang there midair as Luna's horn pierced her brain.

The horn retreated from the corpse, fresh blood running down from it and Luna refocused Celestia, grinning at her hugely with blood covered fangs. Then she used her magic to twist Emerald's head several times in circle. With multiple loud cracking and tearing noises, the head finally ripped off, a stream of fresh blood running out of it.

Luna tossed the head over to her sister, making it land right in front of her. Celestia stared at it in horror, collapsing to the floor and starting to cry.

The sight made Luna laugh a bit, but her focus quickly returned to the corpse. She sank her fangs into the torso, tearing out a large piece of flesh, chewing and swallowing it.

Celestia observed this with a complete lack of words. These were horrors she had never seen before. As a mighty demi-goddess, she never thought she would ever get into a situation where she would feel fear and disgust like that. After a minute of fighting the urge to run away and throw up, she finally found the strength to speak again.

"Luna... why?" Celestia spoke in a hoarse voice.

The Princess of the Night refocused her again, canceling her magic and letting the corpse fall to the ground.

"I am not your sister. She is gone. My name is Nightmare Moon, the de manis. I am the incarnation of darkness' hatred and Luna's desperation and insanity," Luna replied in a foreign voice.

Another wave of shock bolted through Celestia. She had no idea her sister's situation was truly _that_ bad. All the time, she misjudged Luna's needs and requests. Now, she had fallen to an extreme form of insanity and even denied her own name.

"L-Luna... please... come back to your senses! You do not have to do this! I... I promise I will not be mad at you and forgive you for this. J-just... just come back! We can talk about this. We can talk this out!" Celestia pleaded.

Manic laughter broke out of the Princess of the Night in response. After a few seconds, she stopped laughing and got up from her throne, slowly walking towards Celestia.

"Do you not think it is a bit late for talking now? You had centuries full of opportunities, but all you cared about were your _precious_ subjects. Your arrogance - Light's arrogance - has driven your sister to complete desperation. Her solitude brought her to the point where she tried to create an artificial companion. While she created me, she spoke out a wish. A wish for punishment. A wish for revenge. Now, I am here to fulfill this wish," Luna replied.

Celestia slowly backed away the closer her sister came. Of course, Celestia was very powerful. But so was Luna and in her current situation, she was completely unpredictable.

"Oh, you do not have to worry, Celestia. I will not kill you. Not yet," Luna commented. "Your punishment needs to be the heaviest of all. I want you to fully realize the error of your doing. I wish for you to see the full scale of disaster your arrogance caused. The tyranny of light ends now. Darkness shall dominate the world and you shall observe while I slaughter your dear children."

Now, Celestia was forced to act. She could not let her sister continue this bloodbath. She needed to stop her.

"No... please, Luna. Do not make me do this," Celestia begged while her horn began to glow.

"You really do not understand it, do you? This body is not your sister's anymore. It is mine. Therefore, I shall shape it in the ways I want," Luna explained and readied a spell herself.

The black tears coming from her eyes now started spreading all over her body. A dark aura built up around the demi-goddess of darkness. But it was not the regular black darkness of Luna. The aura was red and quickly clustered up around the princess.

While the black liquid covered Luna's entire coat and caused her to grow, the red darkness fused with her mane and tail. Soon, it re-merged with Luna's powers, causing her mane and tail to become a strange blue spectral mass. Finally, a blue armor appeared around the dark demi-goddess' body, consisting of a helmet, chestplate and leg guards.

All along the transformation, Celestia was just a bystander, observing in dread while her sister changed. After she was done altering her appearance, her eyes shot open again. For a short moment, they were colored in a strong evil red. But then they too became blue.

At this moment, Celestia realized that her sister wasn't just talking senseless things out of her insanity. There really was something inside Luna. Something that controlled her. Something abysmally evil.

The Princess of the Day decided to attack. She somehow needed to stop this thing that had taken over her sister. So, she fired a powerful beam of light. But the creature easily countered her spell with an at least as powerful dark beam.

While they were still casting their spells, Luna... no... Nightmare Moon cast another one. Celestia's own shadow suddenly turned against her and pinned her against a wall. She really did not see that coming.

It would have been easy for Nightmare Moon to kill Celestia now. She was unable to move and the shadow even canceled any spell she tried to cast. But that would have been too easy for this arrogant demi-goddess of light. The de manis just stepped in front of her and grinned at her sinisterly.

"Remember this face, Celestia. For it shall haunt you in your nightmares. Today dawns a new era of horror and violence, of blood and insanity. My wrath shall not end before every last pony has found a gruesome death. Keep in mind, Celestia, that this is your fault. Everything that happens from this moment on is caused by you and your ignorance," Nightmare Moon promulgated, teleporting herself away as soon as she finished speaking.


	6. Eternal Night, Eternal Horror

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

Celestia was in her bed chamber, sitting in front of the window and shaking all over while gazing at the moon with an absentminded expression. She was experiencing something she never experienced before. Something she only knew from her first subjects after Luna and she rescued Equestria from Discord: trauma.

About 5 hours had passed since the events in Luna's throne room. It was hard to tell, since the moon stood perfectly still, high on the night sky as if it claimed rulership over the world now. Celestia was unable to do anything but stare at it while this dreadful scene kept repeating itself over and over again in her mind.

Her sister... tearing apart her own servants. Emerald Dream, Celestia's favorite maid, tortured in worst imaginable ways. Luna killing her before Celestia's very eyes and ripping her head off, throwing it over to her in precise intention to horrify her... just how could it have come that far?

As if all that wasn't traumatizing enough... the blood around Luna's mouth and covering her teeth. Her own sister, sinking magical fangs into another pony's body. She feasted on Emerald Dream. She performed cannibalism as if it was nothing.

Finally, Celestia managed to put her thoughts in order a bit again. No. It wasn't Luna who had done all this. It was this creature possessing her. This 'de manis', Nightmare Moon. She escaped with Luna's body and powers.

The Princess of the Day left her sister's throne room unaltered and went straight to her bed chamber to recover mentally. She knew she couldn't leave it like that, but was not able to deal with this yet. She wasn't precisely sure what to do. All the staff of the castle were killed, so she definitely had to hire new ones. But she could not possibly let them clean up something so... so very, very wrong. If even she didn't know if she could handle entering this room again and erase Nightmare Moon's doing, then who would _possibly_ be able to?

As Celestia slowly started to recover from the shock, other and even far more important thoughts came to her mind. Where did Nightmare Moon go? Where did she take Luna? What was she going to do? Finally, she managed to proceed the final words Nightmare Moon spoke to her before teleporting away, making her eyes go wide open in fear.

"'My wrath shall not end before every last pony has found a gruesome death,'" she quoted shakily.

As the Princess of the Day finally came to understand that the de manis had threatened to erase Equestria's entire population, she managed to toss her trauma aside and got up again. She couldn't just sit back and let Nightmare Moon murder her beloved subjects without any resistance. The de manis had to be stopped! Celestia only hoped to be able to find a way for this without having to do anything to her sister.

While the demi-goddess of light flew through the castle, she thought of every possibility she had to capture this creature. It was then that she realized Nightmare Moon possessed such enormous powers that she could easily match her own. It was obvious, actually. This... _thing_ controlled Luna's body and mind. Celestia was aware of how powerful darkness can be, especially when it was enraged.

Nightmare Moon claimed to be an embodiment of darkness' pure hatred. She said she acted in the name of darkness, as a bringer of justice and revenge. Although Celestia completely failed to see any justice or justification in her actions, she did wonder if the de manis meant what it said or if it was just babbling. Still, one thing was perfectly clear: no normal pony would stand even the smallest chance against her.

All on her own, Celestia would obviously fail to find Nightmare Moon and prevent any more murders. She also couldn't risk to send her subjects to catch her. So, the best she could do was informing them that they needed to keep their eyes open and inform her immediately if they spotted this creature.

The Princess of the Day reached the balcony. Below her was the entire population of Everfree City. The subjects all had stopped working and just wandered around in deep confusion and worry. It didn't take them longer than a few seconds to realize that Celestia had stepped on the castle balcony, since they were expecting her to appear and thus frequently looked up.

"My beloved subjects. I regret to inform you that Equestria is facing a new crisis. My sister, Princess Luna, had been abducted by a pony-like creature named Nightmare Moon!" Celestia announced.

The reaction was not to her expectation. Instead of worry and fear, they had confusion written on their faces. Still, Celestia continued.

"It is of utmost importance that she returns to us safely! Without her presence, the moon can not be lowered! So I ask you, my dear subjects, to look out for an unusually tall black pony with magical blue mane and tail, wearing a blue armor. Avoid any contact, as she is extremely dangerous! Instead, should you be able to find this creature, report to me immediately!" she explained.

For a moment, uneasy mumbling spread across the crowd. Suddenly, one of the subjects shouted up to the princess.

"We never even knew you had a sister, Princess! Why is she so important for the moon?" the mare wondered.

Celestia was dumbstruck. Was that pony serious? She didn't know about Luna?

"I do believe these are not the proper times to make jokes like that! Surely you do remember Princess Luna, demi-goddess of the night and co-ruler of Equestria!" Celestia spoke again, her voice filled with a mix of confusion, a small amount of anger and worry.

Again, the ponies only looked at each other in confusion. Several of the citizen started shaking their heads slowly.

"We are being honest, Princess! We never heard of your sister before!" a stallion finally answered.

Again, Celestia's eyes went wide open in shock and she slowly backed away to hide the fact that her expression was slowly shifting and her mouth falling open in disbelief.

The Princess' mind was blown. They didn't remember Luna! They had forgotten she saved Equestria along with her! How could this be possible? Then it struck Celestia.

"_Sister... is there any chance we might be able to spend some time together?" _

"_A few hundred... it already has been a few hundred years..."_

"_How much time has passed since we created the cutie mark spell?"_

"_Fifty years already..."_

"_Sister. Please. All I ask for is one single night!"_

"_Is it not reason enough that I am begging you?"_

"_You do not understand, sister! I can not take it anymore! I really can not!"_

Celestia sat down on the floor, staring into the emptiness of the night. All the time, Luna was serious about being alone. All the time, she desperately had been struggling to not become forgotten! Yet, Celestia completely disregarded her.

It all made sense now. Nightmare Moon was telling the truth. The demi-goddess of light effectively brought her sister to the point of total desperation and insanity, which then also affected darkness itself due to her very strong connection to it.

"What have I done?" Celestia asked herself while her tears started flowing.

Moments later, a faint manic laughter echoed across the land. The ponies became terrified, as there was something horrific about this laugh and they did not know the creature it belonged to. But Celestia knew. This was the voice of Nightmare Moon.

Roughly an hour before, in a midsize city known as Manechester, the ponies were still completely clueless of what was going on. While some just went back to bed, assuming that something simply went wrong with the inner clock of people, some started wandering around and looking for materials to make torches. Some of the ponies were fearless, making the best of the situation. But most took the prolonged nighttime as a clear warning sign that something terrible had happened.

A large pile of scrap wood was gathered in the center of the city, which then became ignited as a general source of light and heat. Autumn was approaching and it started getting cold at night. So most of the citizen were gathering around the fire, trying to keep themselves warm and their moral up. This situation wouldn't last forever... wouldn't it?

None of the adult ponies were as unsure about this as the children were. Foals were holding their mothers tightly while gazing into the fire to distract themselves. Some already sensed that torchlight would be the only kind they would ever see again.

Suddenly, a bright flash filled the air. The citizen turned to its source. A very unusual pony had appeared close to them. A black alicorn with spectral blue mane and tail, wearing a blue armor. Her eyes were blue as well, but there was something strange about them. They were oddly shaped and the color seemed very unnatural, as if it covered the true one.

The unexpected visitor gazed down on the ponies with despise and a deep hatred. The ponies realized this and while the adults slowly backed away, the foals were hiding behind their parents.

"Say, my _beloved_ subjects: Do you miss your sun?" the pony wondered.

"W-who are you?" one of the citizen asked. The alicorn laughed shortly in a sinister tone before replying.

"I am Nightmare Moon. But you may call me your Princess of Terror," she explained while her mane and tail started gathering to a large blue aura around her. "Keep one thing in mind, _ponies_: When you see me, you better start running. _For I have come to claim your flesh._"

With these words, she used a telekinetic spell to rip a good dozen of ponies in half. Panic broke loose instantly and the ponies started screaming and running in all directions.

Nightmare Moon just laughed manic, letting dark blades shoot out of her aura and chase after several of them. Lightnings appeared out of nowhere, striking down a dozen ponies more.

The de manis frequently made sharp traps shoot out of dark corners the citizen were running to, forcing them to turn around and run back towards her. Every now and then, she picked one of them up by magic. Those who were so unfortunate as to be caught by her were either eaten alive, torn to shreds and then evenly scattered over the city, or thrown into the fire.

Many retreated into their homes, hoping in vain that they would be safe there. Nightmare Moon just tossed the burning torches they dropped on the thatched roofs. It did not take very long for the whole city to set on fire, smoke filling the streets.

Panic and fear increased rapidly as the de manis tried all she could to make this as traumatizing as possible. She took her time to kill the ponies, focusing more on letting them experience fear and dread than agony and desperation. She even allowed several to get away, but that was planned. She used the escaping witnesses to spread the word of her cruelty and make all of Equestria tremble in fear over her name.

The fewer survivors were left, the easier it was for Nightmare Moon to intensify the horrors they were experiencing. The smoke made it very hard for them to see or breathe and the floor started getting slippery from all the spilled blood and guts. Those who weren't bleeding yet already found themselves covered in the blood of other ponies.

With each brutal death, the air seemed to change a bit more in color. The dark and smoke filled atmosphere turned more and more into crimson red. It felt like darkness itself became bloodthirsty.

Not even an hour later, the city was next to deserted, burning, bloodsoaked and filled with thick red darkness. Nightmare Moon calmly wandered around, picking up the last survivors foolish enough to not run out of the city and ripping them apart while analyzing her work. Although she was satisfied by her extreme display of violence, she was generally displeased.

"This is taking way too long. Like this, I will not be able to erase pony-kind," she mumbled to herself while tearing out the spine of a still living victim.

She dropped the pony to the ground, looking it deep into the eyes. Unspeakable suffering, fear and terror could be seen in them. It was still alive and struggled in vain to breathe and move, staring back at Nightmare Moon. But soon, the shine in the eyes vanished.

As the de manis watched it die, she saw her own reflection in the pony's eyes. She suddenly found herself inspired.

"Alone, I would have to choose between fast and effective kills or slow and cruel deaths. But if there were more of me, I could have both," she spoke while grinning wickedly. "So why should I stay the only one of my kind? Why should I be the only way for darkness to satisfy its bloodlust?"

While she spoke to herself, a stallion decided to run out of his cover, hoping he could get past her while she wasn't looking. But Nightmare Moon knew where he was all along. His sudden movement only caused her to grab him by magic and let him levitate over to her.

The pony screamed in panic and desperately kicked through the air trying to break loose. But it was useless. As he was just behind the de manis, he stopped screaming and struggling entirely, doing nothing anymore but stare at her in horror.

"Yes. I need more. More of me. More de manis," she spoke to herself while turning around.

Their gazes met. Suddenly, Nightmare Moon's eyes turned from blue to a red that could only be described as otherworldly evil. A red that embodied the very essence of darkness' cruelty. As the stallion stared in them, his mind became overwhelmed by images of hate and gruesomeness that even outdid everything he experienced tonight by far. He started screaming like never before in his life. His screams and fear rapidly became worse and worse. Ultimately, he stopped breathing. The pony literally became scared to death.

At this moment, Nightmare Moon invaded the stallion's body through his eyes, ears and mouth with her blue aura. Just moments later, it returned with a small glowing sphere: the pony's soul.

The de manis cast a spell, tearing a part of her aura away and turning it back into red darkness. It quickly clustered around the soul, consuming it entirely. Several moments later, it started changing color and taking shape. It grew to a slender white figure in black clothing. As it fully took shape, the creature looked similar to Nightmare Moon, but its mane, tail and even face were missing. Still, Nightmare Moon succeeded in creating another de manis.

"You are a lot different. You also seem to be far less powerful than I am," she commented.

The other de manis turned its head to her. Although it could not speak, it still seemed to communicate with Nightmare Moon in some way, since she grinned and responded to something he apparently said.

"I see. It depends on how powerful the soul is and what emotions dominate it which defines how strong the de manis will be and what it will look like," she spoke.

The white, suited de manis then bowed down before her. Nightmare Moon began to laugh again.

"Your queen? Appropriate. I can not create de manis equal to my power. But you are still a part of me and depend on my existence. Very well then. I shall become the queen of the de manis with countless of children. Together, we will end this world in the name of darkness," she agreed.

The white de manis looked up to his queen.

"Let the ponies decide about your name. No horror is more effective than that you named yourself. Now go, my child! Spread the fear and suffering! Bring punishment to these sun-loving creatures!" the queen of the de manis ordered.

The suited de manis suddenly let four long black arms grow out of its back, raising them into the air as a symbol to be ready to fight. Then it nodded, disappearing in a nearby shadow.


	7. The Bargain

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

Shaking. That was all the young brown colt could do. Shaking and staring into the light of the only candle in his room. He heard the rumors of Nightmare Moon, but never believed in them. He just couldn't imagine any creature to be that powerful and brutal. Now, afterwards, he not only believes them, but even thinks they understate her cruelty. The queen of the de manis really deserved her name. She truly was a living nightmare.

About one week ago, rumors spread across Equestria of sinister creatures haunting the land. Nopony ever heard of something like a de manis before, so they had no idea what to expect of them. It also seemed like everypony heard different things of what they look like and do.

Many say they are mostly black, but some also claim to have heard of de manis made of fire, ice and stone. A few even claimed to have seen a tall, white, faceless de manis in a black suit. It seemed like the only thing almost all had in common where glowing red eyes.

While many heard they lure monsters to Equestria like manticores, hydras, chimeras and cocatrice, there also were unverified stories of pony slaughter, flesh eating, burning villages and torture. The colt himself could confirm all of the above to be true.

Suddenly, the door opened and a tall figure stepped in. The brown colt instantly shot up from his bed and tried to run away, but ended up falling. Unable to get up anymore in his physical and mental condition, he skidded across the floor, screaming in panic while retreating into the next best corner. Even as Celestia stepped into the candlelight, he didn't stop trying to squeeze himself against the wall. The Princess of the Sun glanced down on him in pity.

"Oh my poor child..." she spoke in a sorrowful tone.

The colt looked terrible. His right hind leg and half of his left ear were missing and he had various deep cuts and heavy burnings across his body. The dried blood covering him beneath the fresh bandages was not his own, as the doctors confirmed. But that only gave an even clearer hint to what he must have been through. Yet, that was exactly why Celestia had come to his infirmary. He was the third pony who had encountered Nightmare Moon and lived so far.

It took the brown colt a relatively long time to finally process what he was seeing and come to understand that it wasn't Nightmare Moon standing before him, but Princess Celestia. Even after the realization kicked in, he only calmed down very slowly. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes and he gazed at the bright demi-goddess with a look that only made it all the more heartbreaking to her.

"I am so very sorry for troubling you while you are still in recovery, but I hope you do understand that the information you have are of huge value to me," the Princess apologized.

The colt tried to put himself together and pushed himself up to a sitting position. His gaze then wandered down his body and to the bloody bandaged stump where his right hind leg used to be just hours ago.

"H-how... how can I help you, Princess?" he asked meekly and very insecure.

Celestia felt very guilty for what she was going to ask for. It was very clear that he was still under trauma and that asking him now would only break him down again, but it had to be.

"If you can still remember... and if it is not too much to ask, I would like to know everything that had happened," the bright demi-goddess requested.

The question alone was enough for the colt to start shaking again. He needed minutes to gather the courage to dive into these fresh, horrible memories.

"I was with my parents when it happened... First, there were these noises. I never heard anything like that before. My parents told me to stay in the house while they went looking... Then, there was this roar. Then screams. Then..." the colt spoke, pausing a moment as he came to the gruesome memories, "this beast came... 'A chimera, a chimera!' they shouted... It... It ate my mommy..."

The child had to stop as the tears started to flow and the grief clogged his throat. Celestia came closer, laying down right in front of him and covering the colt with her right wing, caressing him carefully to comfort. After a while, he was able to continue.

"The beast ran past the house. It didn't see me. Then, there were these other creatures. De manis for what I know," he explained.

"How many?" Celestia asked carefully.

"I'm not sure. Like twenty. Maybe more," he replied.

"They are multiplying quickly..." the bright demi-goddess commented quietly.

The colt couldn't understand what she spoke and just gave her a confused look. She, though, shook her head slowly.

"It is nothing. Please continue," she explained.

The colt hoped that she would have enough information now. He gulped hard and his pupils started shrinking, shaking even heavier at the thought of the events that followed.

"Everypony was running away from them. Daddy came in the house and wanted to take me with him. But then... this faceless thing... it grabbed daddy and took him away," the colt spoke, starting to cry again.

The suffering of this small child was unbearable for Celestia. She herself was at the brink of tears, but she couldn't allow herself to cry in front of her subjects. Instead, she just held him tightly and the colt embraced her back. He continued crying for a while, until he suddenly stopped as the most traumatizing memories resurfaced.

"She was there! I saw her! Nightmare Moon! I saw... blood... heads... bones. Red. Red everywhere. The ground, the sky, everywhere... These sounds... these screams..." the colt spoke, dread increasing more and more in his voice as he started shaking violently. "Oh merciful Celestia! Make it stop! Make it stop! Mommy! Daddy! No! Noooooooo!"

The memories and trauma became too much for the child to bear. He started panicking and hyperventilating. Celestia figured that the best she could do for him right now was casting a sleep spell on him.

Moments after her horn began to glow, the child rapidly calmed down until it fell asleep in her front legs. The bright demi-goddess made sure that the spell would give him sweet, innocent dreams and let him levitate back into his bed.

Now that nopony was watching, she allowed her emotions to surface and her tears started flowing while she watched the parentless little colt. At least for the moment, under her sleep spell, he looked like he was fine. But the colt had become one of many new orphans in Equestria.

"Reckless, ruthless, careless, regardless..." Celestia blamed herself while watching the colt sleep.

More than two weeks had passed since the land had seen sunlight the last time. As if the blight wasn't fatal enough, the lack of light made most of the remaining unsheltered plants die. Those who didn't receive a painful and brutal death from Nightmare Moon or her children slowly vegetated from the lack of food. Equestria was dieing.

Celestia didn't know what to do anymore. With each new de manis created, the red darkness spread more across the land. Equestria used to have thousands of settlements, villages and towns. The Princess of the Sun knew of fifty that had been completely destroyed by now. If things kept going like this, next to all would be gone within the following weeks.

Celestia's eyes remained stuck on the sleeping child as she sank in thoughts. Was this really what the future would look like for everypony? After all her sister and she had accomplished, was it really going to end like this? Equestria, destroyed in the name of revenge and 'justice'?

The bright demi-goddess' stopped crying and looked up with a very serious expression. No. She would not let it come to that. Celestia felt very guilty for what she had done to Luna, but there was no justice behind these horrible actions. If there was no other way, she would have to start a war against her own sister. Her defeat and maybe even death would weight less than the lives of hundreds of thousands.

While the bright demi-goddess turned around and stepped outside, she used a magic spell to create a golden armor around her body. She had made her choice. Celestia would do everything necessary to protect her subjects.

"Well done, my children," Nightmare Moon congratulated. The de manis grinned back at her evilly.

Another settlement had been destroyed. When the queen of the de manis arrived, her children had already done the job. Blood and guts were spread everywhere and the air became thickly filled with red darkness. By now, half of Equestria had drowned in destruction, suffering, horror and the evil red of the night.

Darkness was pleased. Nightmare Moon could feel it and so did all the other de manis. But their work was far from done, yet. They would continue until de manis where the only creatures remaining in Equestria.

After her children went on to assault the next civilization, Nightmare Moon took a different route. Ahead of her in far distance was Everfree City, the place where she was born and where Celestia was hiding. If she kept walking this direction calmly, she would arrive just in time so this city would be one of the last standing.

All of Nightmare Moon's actions had meaning. She planned to murder every pony in her way and destroy every settlement that blocked her straight path back. With this, she wanted to give a clear sign that she was coming. Slowly. As an unavoidable sign of doom.

As she kept walking, the queen of the de manis suddenly found herself ambushed by a group of ponies. Although Celestia had warned them to stay away from the evil queen, not everypony was following this advice. Some thought of themselves as heroes trying to rescue the land by defeating Nightmare Moon. But so far, every attack on her failed miserably.

The wicked mare of darkness did not even have to look at them. With a simple spell, she created a powerful shockwave around her that tore the ponies to shreds. At least that is what she thought would happen.

Nightmare Moon was quite surprised when she felt a knife being rammed into her left front leg. She gazed down to the pony who dared to assault her in pure hatred. This is when she realized her attackers were all wearing enchanted armors.

Now aware of what she was dealing with, she cast a second spell. Black spikes shot out of the ground below the ponies. As they hit the armors, the enchantments on them became removed and the ponies found themselves impaled.

It was silent around the evil queen again. Her expression changed to one of great anger, since she knew what this meant.

"Celestia, you fool! You dared to declare war against me and my children? You really do not understand what you are doing. The more you fight back, the greater darkness' fury will become," Nightmare Moon mumbled.

She then looked down to the stabbed leg. The blade was still stuck inside. As Nightmare Moon lifted her leg, she realized that she was bleeding. No. Not she. Luna was bleeding.

"Are you honestly willing to go this far, Celestia? You would be willing to have your sister killed, only to stop me?" she questioned while removing the blade and treating the wound. "This body might be very powerful and immortal, but it is not invincible. Should Luna die, then I, too, will perish with all of my children."

Nightmare Moon closed her eyes and seemed to sink into Luna's mind. Slowly, an expression of frustration grew on her face.

"You stubborn thing! Give me your soul already! Give me my freedom and independency!" she growled.

Somewhere deep inside her, Luna was still there. She might be in coma, but resisted to be entirely engulfed by Nightmare Moon. For now at least. Sooner or later, the queen of the de manis would win and be able to devour Luna's soul. If that happened, Nightmare Moon would become material and all of Luna's powers would be hers forever.

But it might be too late until then. This first assault Celestia planned on her already managed to injure Luna. Out of each failure, the bright demi-goddess would learn and improve. Next time, the results could be much more critical. Nightmare Moon needed to think of something.

While the sinister queen struggled with Luna, she dove into her memories. Luna had been through quite a few historic events already. One of them was especially interesting to Nightmare Moon. As she realized she could use this knowledge to her advantage, her malicious grin returned.

"Well, well, well, Celestia. If you want a war, you shall have a war. You are not the only one who can set up legions. This assault on me only gives me more reasons to spread terror," Nightmare Moon spoke, then turned her head towards Everfree before finishing. "Very soon, you will learn to not provoke me."

Her mighty laughter echoed across the land again as she teleported herself away.

As it flashed again, Nightmare Moon found herself in a seemingly endless plain of snow. She was in search for a presence similar to her own. A dark and very evil one.

After spending a few minutes flying across the arctic wasteland in high speed, tracking down the sensation, she ultimately arrived at a small frozen lake close to a forest. He was here.

The sinister queen stepped in front of the lake, gazing down into the ice. The longer she stared, the stronger the feeling became that something was watching her back.

"Show yourself!" Nightmare Moon ordered.

A muffled growl came from beneath the ice. Moments later a large black fog and two red eyes, surrounded by corrupted green and overflowing with evil magic appeared. The eyes stared at Nightmare Moon full of anger for daring to command him like that.

"Sombra. Creator of curses. You and I have just about enough in common for you to be of interest to me. Consider yourself lucky," Nightmare Moon started.

The eyes narrowed, glancing at her in distrust.

"Being imprisoned beneath the ice of the arctic north, you can not be blamed for not knowing who I am. My name is Nightmare Moon. But this body I am using is one that should be familiar to you. Princess Luna, demi-goddess of darkness," the queen of the de manis explained.

Sombra became enraged as he realized one of the two alicorns who had done this to him was standing right above him. He came as close to the surface as the boundaries of his confinement allowed it, wishing he could attack her and make her pay. Nightmare Moon was amused by how much he hated Luna.

"Calm yourself, corrupted soul of darkness! Luna is under my full control," she explained, then allowed the true, malicious red color of her eyes to surface. "Very soon, her soul will belong to me and she will die."

Now, Sombra understood that something possessed Luna and that she was as good as gone. This satisfied him and he stepped back again, allowing Nightmare Moon to continue speaking.

"I have come to offer you a bargain, crystal king. To your great fortune, you possess an ability I require. The ability to create powerful curses," she explained.

Sombra's eyes narrowed again, wondering what he would get out of teaching her his greatest ability. Nightmare Moon understood, causing her to laugh a bit.

"It would hardly be a bargain if I would not offer something in return! You and I are similar. We are both creatures of darkness and corruption. We both seek domination. So, I offer you a one in a lifetime chance. Give me your talent and your soul. In return, I shall grant you powers beyond imagination, immortality and freedom. But most of all, I will guarantee that you will regain rulership over your empire. Your banishment and the curse of the crystal empire shall expire at the same time. You will be able to reclaim the land and do whatever you wish with it," Nightmare Moon offered.

The corrupted king was unsure. The price was high, but so was the gain. Finally, he concluded that his desire for freedom, revenge and domination was so strong that he would do anything to break free again. With a nod, he agreed to the bargain and started casting a spell.

Nightmare Moon started grinning again and cast a spell on her own. Although she was not strong enough to break the seal which kept Sombra locked beneath the ice, their powers combined managed to create a tiny gap in the magic seal.

As soon as it opened, Nightmare Moon let her blue aura crawl through it and inside Sombra himself. He watched as hands formed out of the aura, grabbing inside him. While a part of Nightmare Moon remained in Sombra to prevent him from dying, a part returned with his soul.

The small black sphere was emitting a strange purple aura. Sombra bound his entire knowledge of curse magic to it in this form, making it easy for Nightmare Moon to absorb it.

The queen of the de manis inhaled the aura. Instantly she started laughing in satisfaction. She now was able to create curses.

"Very well, Sombra. You have kept your part of the bargain, then so shall I. This curse will be my first and many will follow," she announced.

Nightmare Moon tore a large part of her aura away and turned it back into red darkness, which then started clustering around the black soul. The curse Nightmare Moon crafted was so powerful that the entire area around her drowned into a deep crimson color for a moment.

They both watched as the red mass compressed more and more, until it finally turned into a small object. A black triangle with a large red diamond on it. The head of a black and red eyed unicorn was above the gem, as well as black and red wings placed to its sides. In a few hundred years, this object would become known as the Alicorn Amulet.

"This token will ensure that no force in the world can destroy you fully. The curse on it will cause the wearer to gain great power, but in return will permanently damage their soul. Additionally, each use will weaken the seals that keep you and the crystal empire bound. One day, the seals will shatter. Until then, you must wait," Nightmare Moon explained.

The corrupted king seemed amused and nodded in confirmation. He now could actually hope to be mighty again one day.

The queen of the de manis was done here. Sombra retreated into the depths of the ice and she herself teleported back into the center of Equestria, throwing the Alicorn Amulet into the next best river. She knew it was just a matter of time until it would be found.


	8. Immortal Slaves

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

After Nightmare Moon returned, she continued her plan of flying straight towards Everfree City on a slow pace. Despite Celestia's attack on her, nothing changed in the sinister queen's behaviour. The only thing that did change now was that she started planning more in advance.

The bargain with King Sombra made her think. It would take a very long time for his seal to break, but it certainly would. A great disaster was coming in distant future and no creature besides her knew of this. Although her main motive was to give darkness a swift relief of its rage, she kept herself the options open in case this would not be possible.

The queen of the de manis was very powerful, but she was not unconquerable. At least as long as she still depended on Luna's body and soul. Should something happen to the dark demi-goddess, Nightmare Moon needed to make sure that this would not mean her own end and thus the end of darkness' attempt to get revenge.

She wanted to leave a mark. A permanent damage on the whole land not even Celestia would be able to undo. This is why she required the ability to create curses. But she would wait for her plan until the last second. Her main objective was to destroy the world as quickly as possible and not letting darkness wait centuries over centuries to finally find justice. But even for that, the power of curses would become very useful.

The queen of the de manis reached another village. As the ponies spotted her up in the night sky, they instantly broke out in panic. By now, every pony in the entire land knew of her cruelty and insatiable hunger for pony flesh.

Nightmare Moon had little interest to occupy herself with this place for too long, but she had to kill the ponies and display her power. For what she aimed to do, the ponies needed to fear her as much as possible.

Still levitating in the air, she cast a dark spell. Heavy dark greenish clouds appeared above the village and soon, they started to rain down on the ponies. As the green drops landed on the ground, they instantly evaporated with a fizzing noise, corroding everything they touched.

The acid storm quickly got worse and worse. The ponies screamed in agony as their skin and flesh melted off their bodies. Not even their houses provided them a lot of protection. In just a matter of moments, they too became dissolved by the powerful acid.

After just a minute, Nightmare Moon could stop the storm. Several ponies already died, but a majority was at a desperate and agonizing battle with death, rolling around in the acid puddles and rapidly dissolving. Only three ponies were lucky enough to avoid getting showered by acid and had only minor cauterizations, but in return stared at the dying ponies in dread.

It were these ponies the wicked mare of darkness was interested in. She caught a purple pegasus stallion by magic and levitated him over to her. The pony struggled, flapping his wings and desperately trying to escape. But as he was just in front of the sinister queen, he decided to stop and just wait for her to kill him.

Nightmare Moon grinned as she stared at the pony shaking all over and awaiting his death. This was exactly the kind of pony she needed. One so terrified of her, it would do everything just to survive. The wicked mare's face became serious again as she made him an offer.

"I will give you a choice, pony," Nightmare Moon started. "You can either die a gruesome death right here and now, or you will submit to me."

The stallion's eyes slowly opened again, but he kept shaking violently.

"I-I submit! I submit! I will do whatever you say! Just, please, don't kill me!" he whimpered.

"Will you abandon Celestia?" the queen of the de manis asked while grinning again.

"Y-yes!" the stallion replied.

"Will you serve me and do my bidding?" Nightmare Moon asked again.

"Yes! Everything! Everything you say!" the stallion answered.

"Then, from now on, you shall be my property," the evil queen finished.

A dark aura formed around her horn, which she then shot down on the ground beneath the captured pony. The acid moved aside to make space for a strange slimy black liquid that steamed in a black fog.

Nightmare Moon lowered the pony to the liquid. Again, it struggled and flapped its wings, hoping in vain to escape. The black smoke grabbed the stallion's hind legs as they came in reach and pulled him closer and closer. Finally he found himself engulfed by the black liquid and sunk into the ground. But just moments later, he raised his front hooves out of the slime and crawled outside.

The black slime quickly soaked into the stallion, leaving only the last bit stuck to his body, which then shaped into a cloak. The stallion suddenly became strangely calm. He did not even shake anymore and as he opened his eyes again and saw his reflection in a nearby window, he realized that his eyes had become thoroughly black.

The stallion inspected his body and cloak for a moment. Then he turned around to Nightmare Moon.

"What... what have you done with me?" he asked carefully.

"I have turned you into my personal bringer of death. Your body, soul and your very mortality belong to me now. From this moment forth, you shall act as my battle slave," Nightmare Moon replied.

"I see..." the stallion replied and bowed down before her. "What is your bidding, my mistress?"

"Go and seek out Celestia's warriors. Bring death to them," the queen of the de manis ordered.

"But... how will I be able to defeat them?" the cursed stallion wondered, surprised that suddenly, the idea of murdering other ponies did not bother him anymore.

"Do not worry about your own life. It shall not end before I say so. No matter how much you get injured, you will always recover. But be warned, my reaper. Do not dare to disobey me, or you shall die a thousand agonizing deaths," the wicked mare of darkness threatened.

"As... you wish," the stallion replied and lifted into the air.

Nightmare Moon started laughing again. This worked out way better than she expected. Even though she reduced his emotions dramatically to make him a more ruthless and effective killer, he still feared her so much that he would not possibly dare to displease her.

The evil queen's eyes wandered across the village again. Next to all ponies were dead and heavily disfigured by now. Only two ponies still stood there, shaking all over and staring at her. Nightmare Moon grinned at them sinisterly.

"And what may your choice be? The acid rain or slavery?" she wondered.

"The troops are doing everything they can, Princess! These de manis are extremely tough enemies!" one of the royal guards spoke.

"What have you learned of them so far?" Celestia asked.

"They seem to be highly intelligent. It feels like they sometimes know we are planning assaults on them and set up a counter plan. Also, we completely failed to kill even a single one of them so far," the guard replied.

"You can not kill them? Why not?" the bright demi-goddess wondered.

"We have no idea! Our spears, swords and daggers hit them, but they leave absolutely no visible damage! Not even the enchanted ones!" the guard stated.

"There just has to be a way! We _must_ stop them!" Celestia insisted.

"We are trying our best, but it's getting harder and harder to keep the major cities protected! It feels like there are more de manis coming from the red darkness with every hour that passes!" the guard explained.

"You are doing a great job. Without you, Equestria would be overrun already. Please, just try to buy me as much time as possible," the princess of the sun requested.

"Yes, your highness!" the stallion replied and ran back outside.

Celestia stepped in front of one of the many windows in her throne room and gazed out in the distance with a worried expression on her face. The red darkness had almost reached Everfree. In just the last 24 hours, she got reports of 16 more towns being destroyed. Who knows how many more had fallen already and simply did not get reported because nopony survived to tell the tale? One thing was clear, though: the pony population remaining in Equestria was slowly approaching a critical minimum.

Since there is no such thing as a military in Equestria, Celestia depended on ponies volunteering to fight for her. But the reputation of the de manis, especially that of Nightmare Moon, was speaking for itself. A majority of the ponies were extremely afraid of them by now. So it was very difficult for the bright demi-goddess to find enough guards to effectively protect the land.

She herself made it her responsibility to protect Everfree. Although she did this task nearly completely on her own, she was very successful in repelling monsters and de manis. After all, she was a mighty demi-goddess. But it seemed like there was something about her magic that impressed de manis more than the magic of an average unicorn. So far, she figured that it would be her light magic, since de manis are creatures of darkness. But now that she heard that the weapons she enchanted with light spells had no effect on them, she needed to rethink.

Things were looking very bad. Monsters were running loose all over the land. De manis were reproducing at a terrifying speed. More and more ponies were dying. Desperation and fear were eating on the already very weak population. If Celestia would not find a way to take out Nightmare Moon soon, it would be too late.

The princess of the sun was brought out of her thoughts by the clattering of hooves approaching her from behind. As she turned around, she saw a blue mare, wearing a black cloak. The hood was pulled up, preventing Celestia from seeing her face. But what she could see was that her focus was lowered to the ground and that she had a strange expression.

In the past weeks, Celestia had nearly only seen desperate faces. Not a single one of her subjects was doing even decent anymore. This one mare, though, had a very neutral expression. So neutral that it in fact actually seemed cold.

"What can I do for you, my subject?" the bright demi-goddess wondered.

The mare came to a halt closely in front of Celestia. She did not reply immediately, but rather took several seconds as if she was hesitant.

"I'm sorry..." she finally spoke.

"Sorry for what?" Celestia wondered.

"For this," the blue mare replied.

Suddenly, a black scythe appeared out of nowhere, which she grabbed with her mouth and swung at Celestia.

The bright demi-goddess could react just in time to summon a shield of light to block off the attack.

"What in the name of all good things are you doing?!" Celestia shouted in disbelief.

The mare did not reply. Instead, she pulled off a maneuver to get around the shield and struck again. The demi-goddess of light could teleport herself to safety, but just as she returned her focus to the cloaked mare, she had run right in front of her again.

Using a levitation spell, Celestia stopped the mare and lifted her into the air, out reach for the scythe to hit her.

"Why are you doing this?!" The princess of the sun asked.

"Because I must obey Mistress Nightmare Moon," the cloaked mare replied calmly.

Celestia was about to to shout out in disbelief of what she just heard when something unexpected happened. The mare she held captive midair suddenly turned into a black cloud, capable of escaping Celestia's magic.

The demi-goddess quickly found herself surrounded by the fog, having it come ever closer. Black teeth formed in the mass and aimed to ram into Celestia from all directions.

At this moment, the princess of the sun used a strong light spell to blast the cloud away. The mass quickly gathered together and formed back into the cloaked mare. Before she could react, Celestia launched another spell on her. Strong chains of light shot out of her horn and tied the cloaked mare to the ground.

The demi-goddess of light panted a bit. Not in exhaustion, but in shock. The strikes of this mare were close. If she had been just a little bit slower, she would be dead now.

Celestia carefully approached the cloaked mare, making sure that she was unable to escape again. Indeed, after just a short struggle, the mare came to understand that she had been defeated and stopped moving. Then, she felt a hoof on her head, pulling the hood of her cloak back.

The bright demi-goddess looked at the mare in shock and stepped back again. Those eyes... they were not of a pony. Black, dull and deep as the darkest night.

"What are you?" Celestia wondered.

"Mistress Nightmare Moon named us reapers," the mare replied.

"Reapers... this magic... I have sensed it before," the bright demi-goddess started talking to herself. "Could it be? How? How can Nightmare Moon know curse magic?"

The reaper mare just remained silent and laying on the ground, completely motionless. Celestia knew she would not get any information from her. Whatever Nightmare Moon had done to this mare, she now was definitely no longer a pony and served her loyally. Yet another kind of threat had appeared.

The door to Celestia's throne room opened again and the same royal guard she had been talking to just minutes ago came rushing in.

"Your highness! The outposts are under attack!" he shouted.

"Which ones?" the princess of the sun asked.

"All of them!" the guard replied.

Celestia's eyes went wide open. How can this even be possible? How could the situation have changed so rapidly?

"Are they being attacked by-" she wanted to ask, turning her head over to the cloaked mare when she realized that she was gone.

For just a moment, Celestia was distracted enough for the reaper mare to break loose from the light chains. As she turned her head back to the royal guard, it was already too late. She had sliced her scythe through his neck, too fast for him to even react.

The cloaked mare instantly turned around to Celestia, trying to strike her again. But now, the demi-goddess of light was enraged. Her eyes turned white and she gathered her magic, creating a single but very powerful bolt of pure arcane magic. After she launched it at the reaper mare, the bolt gave off a strong purple explosion, shooting the reaper mare against a wall.

Celestia's eyes became normal again. The strike was lethal. The cloaked mare stopped breathing and showed no signs of life anymore.

This cursed mare was not an experienced fighter. Her movements were clumsy and unprofessional. But she was very fast and strong in return, not to mention that she could turn herself into a black fog. With enemies like that, it was clear that the time Celestia had left was even much shorter than she imagined.

The bright demi-goddess was about to leave to give out new orders, continuously throwing distrusting glances at the dead mare. She was unsure what to expect of these reapers and as the mare started moving again after not even a minute, her suspicion became confirmed.

Shocked to see that she survived such a powerful attack, Celestia used a banisher spell to launch her out of the castle and Everfree City.

"What kind of monster are those reapers? How can it be that I could not defeat her?" she asked herself. "No mortal creature is capable of surviving a strike of arcane magic! If not even that could kill a reaper, nothing can! They are unstoppable!"

Celestia felt how panic spread through her body. Nightmare Moon would definitely create a whole legion of reapers. The war was as good as decided. No matter what, the bright demi-goddess had to somehow find a way to destroy the de manis very, very soon.

The princess of the sun cast a teleportation spell that brought her far outside of Everfree. Her last hope to turn this war around was by capturing a de manis to perform research on it.


	9. The Creation

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

Red. It had become the main color of Equestria. The red of the night. The red of the spilled blood all over the land. The red of the de manis' eyes. Everything had turned red.

Nearly all smaller villages had been destroyed by now. Only the bigger cities were still standing, but even their population kept dropping rapidly due to starvation, disease and reaper assaults. With the additional support of Nightmare Moon's battle slaves, the destruction of the land sped up a lot. Of the millions of ponies, only a couple of hundred thousand were left. The point had been reached where there were more de manis roaming through Equestria than ponies.

In a desperate attempt to save themselves, the ponies abandoned their homes and left the questionable and precarious safety of the big cities, beginning one of the greatest waves of mass migration Equestria had ever seen.

The ponies were looking for a safe haven, but all they knew were rumors. The communication systems had broken down for a while now, so they only heard that Everfree City was the last place still able to keep up its protection. So, the entirety of Equestria's pony population found itself heading out to the capital.

It was an extremely dangerous journey, though. Only every fifth pony actually managed to arrive in Everfree. The rest either dropped dead during the journey due to exhaustion, became attacked by monsters, found themselves ambushed by reapers or torn to shreds by de manis. Even of those who were lucky enough to avoid all this, many were dying shortly after their arrival. The journey simply drained them too much.

The usually cheerful and noisy capital city had been through many changes since the moment Nightmare Moon took over Luna's body, mind and powers. Now, it had become a place of silence. The terrified whimpering of the ponies, sick coughing, moans of suffering and the cries of foals were all that could be heard. Nopony was talking. Barely anypony was moving any more than absolutely necessary. Too great was their fear to be discovered by de manis or to run into one as soon as they left their covers. Not to mention that many could barely even stand up anymore.

In the first few days, Celestia had been walking through the city a lot, trying to soothe her subjects, give them food, medication and hope that this would be over soon. But now, she had simply too much to do with just keeping the city safe. De manis were constantly trying to get into Everfree and nothing but Celestia's spells was left to keep this from happening. Even though protecting Everfree City alone was a fulltime job in itself, the demi-goddess of light had to also occupy herself with other tasks.

Although the bright demi-goddess tried her hardest to keep de manis out of Everfree, she tolerated a single one to be inside. Celestia succeeded in capturing a de manis and brought it straight to Everfree Castle dungeon. It looked terrifying. A small beast that had curved and jagged blades instead of legs and a long mane of thick strands that ended in javelin-like spikes. It was clearly designed to cause suffering and death. All that stopped it from attacking Celestia were the chains of light which kept the de manis pinned against the stone wall.

Celestia spent days researching it, but she was unable to make any progress. Her first attempt to defeat it was by casting a powerful light spell on it. The de manis seemed weakened, but it didn't destroy the beast or cause any visible harm. After just a few moments, it started grinning at Celestia again.

The bright demi-goddess then tried her arcane magic on the beast, but that failed as well. No matter how much unshaped and pure magic she unleashed at the de manis, it caused no damage and the beast recovered very quickly each time.

As the time passed, Celestia became more and more desperate. She attempted all she could think of: tools, weapons, enchantments, potions... the list seemed endless. But ultimately, the princess of the sun had to face that her entire knowledge was useless when it came to destroying de manis.

The beast was still tied to the wall with chains of light, sinisterly grinning at Celestia with glowing red eyes. Through all of her experiments, the dungeon took far more damage than the de manis did. It seemed like the beast did not even mind being held captive. It laughed at every last of Celestia's failed attempts to destroy it and only became more and more amused as her desperation increased.

When Celestia returned to the dungeon, she already was very drained. Like everypony else, the bright demi-goddess could barely find any sleep with this non-existent day and night cycle and huge amount of stress and fear. Even in the few hours she was able to find sleep, she did not rest. Nightmares kept haunting her every time.

The princess of the sun stepped in front of the de manis again, gazing at it full of hate. The de manis stared back, again grinning in amusement, which only increased Celestia's anger and hate.

Still focusing on the de manis, Celestia lifted a metal pole into the air. Using a spell, she made the tip smolder in heat and shape into a very pointy spike. As soon as the spear cooled down, she cast a few very complex spells on them. A well thought through mix of banishments, bright incantations, light spells and purifications. The enchanted speer was very similar to the one she used in the crystal empire many hundred years ago to stop the crystal corruption from spreading and to break the already corrupted crystals.

Celestia shot it at the de manis with full force, but it only got to its very surface. Fueled by anger and desperation, her face formed a grimace of rage and her tears started flowing while she used more and more force in attempt to pierce the spear through the de manis. Ultimately, the material gave in and the spear bent so much, it ended up breaking.

Enormous frustration and desperation rushed through the bright demi-goddess as she launched the broken handle across the dungeon, causing it to get stuck in a rock wall. Again, the de manis only laughed.

The princess of the sun needed a moment to calm down again and started walking up and down the dungeon, trying to come up with something she hadn't tried, yet. But it was no use. Celestia was at her wit's end. Nothing works. Absolutely nothing can destroy a de manis.

Finally, she was able to calm down again and returned to the beast, her expression so full of hate like never before in her life. The princess of the sun stepped in front of the de manis and just watched it grin at her with glowing red eyes for roughly a minute.

"Tell me already," she finally started speaking. "Tell me your secret. How do I destroy you? What is your weakness?"

As always, the de manis gave no reply and just chuckled while presenting its fangs. Celestia kept staring at it for a few moments more. But finally, she just collapsed on her back haunches and started to cry in desperation.

Celestia had to face it: There is no way to destroy a de manis. She could do nothing but give up. Nightmare Moon was only a few more days away from Everfree and once she arrived, the last refuge of pony-kind would fall.

The minutes passed while the bright demi-goddess sat on the ground, hanging her head and going through all the things she had done throughout her life. All the things she had accomplished. All the things she had done wrong and finally, all the things that lead to her sister's insanity. Celestia was guilty for so much. But she never meant for all this to happen. She was just so blind. So foolish. So arrogant...

As the thoughts continued to rush through her mind, Celestia's expression suddenly changed. She started to smile. But it was not one of happiness. It was a smile of desperation.

The princess of the sun had concluded that, should everything come to an end now, she needed to stay a beacon of hope to her beloved subjects until the very end. No matter what, she would never stop smiling at them. No matter what, she would never stop giving them hope.

Celestia slowly rose her head, closed her eyes and began to sing one of the most beautiful songs she knew from her subjects. It was an ancient song. A remnant from the foundation of Equestria itself, translated into the language of the demi-goddesses. A song of friendship, hope and overcoming all difficulties through harmony: The Heart Carol.

"The fire of friendship lives in our hearts

As long as it burns we cannot drift apart.

Though quarrels arise, their numbers are few

Laughter and singing will see us through

We are a circle of pony friends

A circle of friends we'll be to the very end"

The princess of the sun slowly opened her eyes again. What she saw then was something she did not expect. The de manis looked angry and ground its teeth at Celestia. It was displeased over this song of harmony.

Harmony... an idea slowly made its way through Celestia's mind. De manis are creatures of darkness, yes. But what do they do? They destroy. They kill. They spread chaos, suffering and horror. Why does the darkness turn red around them?

Celestia started to understand. They do not spread the red darkness. They spread disharmony, hate and cruelty! This is what they need! Darkness only becomes red through their brutal behaviour! So if they need blood and horror... if darkness is only secondary to them and their true source of strength is violence and desperation... would harmony be their weakness?

The bright demi-goddess quickly got back on her four legs and ran up inside the castle. After ten minutes, she returned.

The de manis was already getting ready for another round of amusement, but what it saw then made its expression change into one of shock for the very first time.

Celestia was wielding the elements of harmony. Judging from her expression, she was very determined to use them. Now, the de manis started struggling and trying to escape the light chains. But just moments later, the five gems and the tiara started glowing brightly.

The de manis started panicking and shifted around wildly. Ultimately, a mighty rainbow colored beam came shooting at it.

The beast screamed, but the scream quickly vanished. As the elements were finished, nothing was remaining of the de manis but a tiny black stream of smoke, rising towards the ceiling before vanishing as well.

For a few moments, Celestia's expression only showed stun. But slowly, it changed into a smile of unspeakable relief and her eyes filled with tears. She did it! She found the weakness of de manis! Now, she knew how to not only defeat Nightmare Moon, but also how to rescue her sister!

Although nopony could hear the death scream of the de manis, its end did not remain unnoticed. At the moment it ceased from existence, all de manis all over the land and even Nightmare Moon herself stopped for a moment and turned their heads towards Everfree with expressions of shock. Since all de manis are part of Nightmare Moon, they share a very deep connection to each other, which enabled them to feel how one of them had just become destroyed.

After many weeks of extremely successful spreading and multiplication, this was the first of their kind that had fallen. Now, there was actually a chance that the de manis would fail at bringing punishment to the world.

After a short moment of speechlessness, the de manis turned their focus to their queen. Nightmare Moon's expression was one of anger. But soon, her evil grin returned.

"Well, well, well. So you did it, Celestia. You found a way to defeat us. I assume you will now try to face me in person and destroy me. But I assure you, this will be a battle you will never forget. No matter what the outcome may be, I will make you wish you had never dared to challenge me," she threatened.

The wicked mare of darkness lifted her gaze into the night sky. So many stars. Luna had put so much effort and magic into the night. It was overflowing with her dark magic. A kind of magic Nightmare Moon could use to her advantage. All she needed to do was to let a little sprout of corruption grow inside the sky. Or rather, four sprouts.

More and more de manis started to cluster up around Everfree City in the following two days. The ponies hiding inside the city were terrified of their presence and the more of these wicked creatures started waiting around the city's force field, the more the situation threatened to escalate and cause the ponies break out in panic.

Finally, the queen of the de manis herself appeared on the horizon. Her approaching was the drip that made the barrel overflow. All of the remaining subjects of Equestria fled inside the castle. Celestia, though, supported their behaviour. She allowed them to hide in the most protected areas of the castle and assigned all the remaining royal guards to protect them. It also was now that Celestia revealed her plan to her subjects. They were shocked to hear how risky it was, but she ensured that this was the only way to rescue Equestria and that she would come out of this victorious.

As the sinister queen arrived in front of the city gates, Celestia was already there, standing on the other side of the forcefield.

"So you have been waiting for me," Nightmare Moon analyzed.

"These acts of terrorism will end now, Nightmare Moon. I will not allow you to take even a single more life," Celestia replied, causing the wicked mare of darkness to laugh.

"And how do you plan to achieve this? How do you plan to stop the rampage of darkness?" she wondered.

"I understand that darkness is upset because of the behaviour of my subjects and that of myself. But these cruel acts of revenge are unjust," the bright demi-goddess replied.

"What is just and unjust depends on perspective. In this case, darkness is the victim and it prefers a swift and bloody punishment over a long and tedious one, like you and your ridiculous light have been treating it for so many hundred years," Nightmare Moon countered.

"I understood the lesson you wanted to teach me. I understood that the light and I have been acting incredibly selfish and that we mistreated darkness and my sister. But if it is revenge in her name you are seeking, how do you justify her erasure? As you said yourself, she is the victim of my ignorance. Please, give her back. She is innocent," Celestia begged.

"I do not care about how guilty every individual is. Everything in my path will be destroyed. It is too late for your sister, Celestia. Darkness has made up its mind about her. She is not worthy embodying it anymore. She is too weak. Thus is why I was created," the queen of the de manis replied.

"You are a creature of revenge. You know precisely that your existence is not meant to be eternal and that darkness will stop rampaging one day. How can darkness destroy the one it embodies the most and prefer a creature of its temporary feelings?" the princes of the sun wondered.

"You and I both know that it will not end here. You would not stand in front of me like that if you did not have a plan you are sure will succeed. But even so, neither darkness or I do care about what comes after this era of punishment. All that matters now is that a line is finally being drawn and light finally learns not to cross it," Nightmare Moon explained.

"If that is the case, then fight me. Spare my subjects and punish me instead," Celestia challenged.

A grin started to grow on Nightmare Moon's face and she chuckled lightly.

"My hatred extends to _all_ creatures in this world, not just you. Equestria is just the beginning. Should I succeed, darkness will take this as confirmation that it is doing the right thing and will proceed to destroy until nothing is left on this world. Why should I stop after you? Why should I give darkness only a fragment of the revenge it desires?" she wondered.

"Because my punishment is the most important one to darkness. You can not fool me, Nightmare Moon. Your words are of cruelty, but I know darkness better than you believe. I know it can be reasoned with. How else would I have been able to live with my sister for such a long time? How else can you explain that we loved each other?" Celestia replied.

Nightmare Moon chuckled again. But while she did so, Celestia could watch the de manis slowly step back from the force field. It seemed as if she was right, but of course, Nightmare Moon would never admit this. She embodies concentrated negativity after all.

"If this is what you call love, then I am glad I am not capable of feeling love. The stronger sister dominating the weaker one and making her her slave and secretary," the wicked mare of darkness commented.

"Yes. I know. What I have done was wrong in every possible way. I know no words in the world are apology enough to make this up anymore. Luna and darkness have every reason to hate me. But no matter how much you hated my subjects as well, their blood has been spilled enough. You said yourself that darkness prefers a swift punishment over a slow one. You already made darkness wait too long by rejecting to kill me the first time. Now you have a second chance. Fight me, queen of the de manis. Fight me and give darkness what it desires the most," Celestia challenged again.

Nightmare Moon's eyes narrowed and turned red again. With a mix of suspicion and anger, she glanced at the demi-goddess of light.

"Unlike you, I am not blinded by the light. My eyes are sharp and focused. Do you honestly believe I would fall for this? Why would I accept your request of a duel when I can easily overrun you with my de manis and reapers? The only reason you and your subjects are not dead yet is because darkness tells me to speak to you," she spoke with an aggressive undertone.

"It will be more satisfying this way. Instead of one of your children, you will be the one ending my life. The only way I could win would be by killing my own sister. Knowing you and darkness, you have probably already taken measures in case this would happen. All that would change is that you make my punishment worse, as I would have to live on with the knowledge that I had to take my own sister's life. You said yourself you do not care for Luna anymore. No matter what the outcome of this duel may be, you can only win," Celestia explained.

The queen of the de manis started grinning again, apparently humored by Celestia's words.

"Just a minute ago, you wanted me to spare your sister. Now, all the sudden, you are willing to kill her?" she questioned.

"I ordered assaults on you before, knowing what this might cause to Luna. I will do whatever it takes to protect her and my subjects, even if it means to end her life, just to prevent her from being entirely consumed by you," Celestia replied with a serious expression.

After hearing this, Nightmare Moon's eyes turned back to blue. She grinned at Celestia, victory already written on her face.

"Sisterly love. What a blissfully twisted affair. Alright, Celestia. You shall have it your way. If I fall, Equestria will be spared. But should you fall, it will be the end of the world," the wicked mare agreed.

She raised her head and started casting a teleportation spell. Moments later, she and Celestia disappeared.

As soon as they vanished, the de manis went out of their battle positions and started walking around aimlessly, occasionally looking up into the sky. Only the reapers kept on patrolling around the city, waiting for the next order of their mistress.

When the spell was done, Celestia found herself in a wide plain, far away from any civilisation. Yet, the landscape looked just like any other in Equestria. Red darkness filling the air. Massive marks of destruction. Long dead and rotting ponies laying everywhere.

Then, Nightmare Moon came into the bright demi-goddess' line of sight, starting to circle around Celestia with her head lowered and a red glow of bloodlust in her eyes. Celestia, too, went into battle stance and started circling along.

"Do not be mistaken, princess of the sun. I am no fool. I do understand that this is all part of your plan. But you shall have your chance," Nightmare Moon spoke.

"If you are so sure of this, why did you agree?" Celestia asked back with a serious expression.

"Your statement was correct, nevertheless. I can only profit from this battle. In worst case, you will be able to entirely destroy me and darkness will fail to achieve revenge. It will return to submission and things will be just like they had been before. But should this happen, darkness' rage will intensify even much more than it is now. The next time it finds a chance to break its shackles, you will not get a chance to reason with it anymore. The night will last forever. All light shall be erased. The horrors will be even a lot more intense than those I have given and all that can be said then is that it was all your fault, Celestia," the queen of the de manis explained.

"It will not come to this. I will find a way. One day, I will find a way to calm the darkness," the bright demi-goddess spoke.

Nightmare Moon started grinning again, presenting her fangs while her eyes faded into white and an arcane aura began to cluster up around her.

"We will see," she spoke, just before the battle began.

Nightmare Moon launched an arcane bolt at Celestia, which she deflected using her own arcane magic and instantly started a counter attack. The two godly being bombarded each other with a wide arsenal of arcane spells, causing huge magical explosions all around them.

After just a few minutes, they both left the ground to continue their battle in midair. The sky became filled with massive black clouds and lightnings shot at Celestia from all directions. She, however, gathered them in her horn, combined them and released them at Nightmare Moon. But the wicked mare of darkness could easily block the beam off using a shield of arcane magic.

"I hope you do not end up disappointing me, Celestia! You had enough time to come up with a plan to defeat me, so I expect more of you than this!" she spoke in an amused tone.

As the queen of the de manis finished speaking, she started to gather the darkness around her to form countless black daggers, which she then launched at Celestia. The bright demi-goddess reacted immediately, summoning two large swords made of light to block them off, before she herself rushed towards Nightmare Moon for an attack.

The wicked mare grinned and teleported away. But as soon as she vanished, Celestia launched both swords right behind her with a small delay. As Nightmare Moon reappeared, the blades were already very close. Yet she still could block them off easily.

What she did not see coming, though, was that Celestia had cast a strong light spell as well. By the time Nightmare Moon blocked off the second sword, the beam hit her with full force. While her expression showed anger for a moment, it almost instantaneously returned to a wicked grin of amusement.

As she tried to block the light spell, Nightmare Moon cast another herself. Celestia's shadow started to rise behind her again, getting ready to capture her, like it did on their first confrontation. The bright demi-goddess, though, was prepared this time. She swiftly redirected the beam behind her and tore the shadow apart. Yet, this gave Nightmare Moon the chance to attack again.

A couple of hundred black spears formed above Celestia, which then came raining down on her. While she used an arcane shield to block them off, those spears that missed their target redirected and came flying towards her from below.

While the princess of the sun was busy protecting herself, Nightmare Moon created a humongous battleaxe she immediately swung at Celestia as soon as it materialized.

The bright demi-goddess, though, saw the weapon coming from the side just in time to react. She cast a teleportation spell and brought herself right behind Nightmare Moon. Still focusing on the massive battleaxe, she could not react in time before Celestia allowed her arcane aura to expand to a huge explosion of magic.

Nightmare Moon became launched through the sky, but quickly recovered her stability. The strike was a success. The queen of the de manis had started to bleed. But her expression showed no pain, only disgust, hatred and arrogance. She simply lifted her right front leg and licked off the blood slowly before starting to grin again.

"Your sister tastes delicious. Maybe I should let you cripple her a bit, so i can devour the severed limbs," she started mocking.

The angry expression on Celestia's face intensified and she started showing her teeth. Lowering her head a bit, she cast another light spell. A chain of light came shooting out of her horn, trying to capture Nightmare Moon.

The grin on the evil queen's face grew bigger. Celestia was so easy to manipulate. Just by mentioning that she was fighting her sister, her attacks already turned from lethal strikes into attempts to just immobilize her.

As the light chain came close, Nightmare Moon swiftly teleported aside and grabbed it. Using a spell, she corrupted the light chains into chains of darkness that went all the way back to Celestia's horn.

Shock was seen on her face as she realized that her spell now turned against her and Nightmare Moon rapidly pulled her closer. Just before they met, though, the demi-goddess of light unleashed a shockwave of arcane magic, forcing Nightmare Moon to dodge with a teleportation spell.

As she materialized again, the wicked mare of darkness was a lot further away than she had been from Celestia all the time and seemed to be annoyed.

"Alright. Enough of this. You are starting to bore me," she commented.

The queen of the de manis rose her gaze up into the sky and closed her eyes. As she reached out her front legs, the darkness began to cluster up around her.

Celestia launched several dozen small beams of light at the quickly growing black sphere, but they all had no effect. Her attacks quickly became more powerful, soon ending up in the strongest spells of arcane magic she knew. But they all had no effect on the sphere.

Suddenly, Celestia noticed how small objects began to fly inside sphere, which seemed to compress more and more as it grew at the same time. Now, she too felt the gravity it created. Fear filled her mind as she came to realize that Nightmare Moon was creating a black hole, right here on the world.

The bright demi-goddess did all she could possibly think of to prevent the sphere from becoming any bigger, but her spells were not powerful enough. There was too much around that fuelled Nightmare Moon. The red darkness, the rotting corpses of subjects, the increasing destruction. It all gave her so much power that she was even capable of outdoing Celestia's powers by far.

At this point, all Celestia could do was trying to fly away. The gravity was pulling strongly on her and she could watch how the dead bodies lifted into the sphere, along with rock, trees and whole parts of the landscape.

Celestia started to panic. The black hole pulled her ever close and not even teleportation spells could bring her far enough away to escape the immense gravity of the sphere. Ultimately, she found herself falling inside.

As soon as she was engulfed, the black hole stopped absorbing its surroundings. After about a second of motionlessness and silence, the whole force of the black hole unleashed into an explosion so great that it until today is searching for anything comparable. The plane became entirely devastated, creating a huge crater in the ground that would become known as The Great Valley much later.

Nightmare Moon levitated in the center of the destruction she caused, laughing maniacally. No stone was left on the other. It amused her how much power she had gained and how easily she could toy with Celestia, as if she was a mere doll.

Her gaze sunk to the ground below her, seeing the bright demi-goddess she launched down with the whole explosion's force bleeding all over. She was still conscious, but could hardly breathe, as she kept coughing up blood. A sight that made the wicked mare of darkness grin widely in victory.

While she slowly sunk to the ground, Celestia focused on keeping her eyes open and getting her broken body under control. With the strength she had left, she started casting a few minor healing spells on herself, just enough to mend her inner damage. She did not get to do a lot more before Nightmare Moon landed just in front of her.

"If that was your plan, then you only confirm what darkness and I were thinking of you all along. Seeing the destruction I can cause, how could you even dare to be so arrogant as to think you would be able to overcome me in a mere battle? Is light really that foolish? Does it really think that its perspectives and justice are so mighty that it can defeat everything else?" the queen of the de manis wondered.

Celestia did not reply. She just kept laying there, waiting for the moment Nightmare Moon would let her guard down.

The bright demi-goddess felt how the blue aura of Nightmare Moon grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. As she helplessly struggled and tried to free herself from the grip threatening to kill her, she was pulled up to the eye level of the wicked mare.

"Do you know what you are, Celestia? A tyrant! You try to cover your lust for power and admiration with your benevolence, but the truth is that all you long for is domination. It is not I who is the true monster here. It is you! I may embody the evil of darkness, but you embody the evil of light!" she started to shout.

It was a close call now. The princess of the sun had to stay focused and conscious, but at the same time, she could not break loose from her grip yet. It all came down to acting just at the right moment now. If she missed her chance, Celestia would die.

The angry glow in Nightmare Moon's eyes slowly disappeared and she stopped showing her fangs. Her eyes turned back to blue and a strange kind of satisfaction could be seen in them, as she now was sure that she won the battle and was about to claim her prize: Celestia's life.

It was a strange moment for the bright demi-goddess. As an entity that can not die of old age, being at the brink of death was more terrifying to her than it would be for any mortal. Yet, this was not what she focused on the most. What truly drew her attention were Nightmare Moon's eyes. All the time, they had been burning with rage and hatred. But now, for the first time ever, she did not seem dangerous anymore. She seemed satisfied with what was about to happen.

"But I have to admit, you were right about one thing, Celestia. Personally taking your life is a lot more satisfying. I suppose I will just keep squeezing you, so your death will be slow and terrifying. Look deep into my eyes, Celestia. I want them to be the last thing you will ever see. I want you to see how much darkness enjoys to kill you," the wicked mare of darkness spoke, unexpectedly calm now.

Celestia choked, gagged and coughed while she was slowly placed back on the ground, Nightmare Moon now towering above her. The grip on her throat became a bit more loose, allowing Celestia to inhale a few small amounts of oxygen, but not enough to keep her alive. Nightmare Moon only aimed to prolong her death.

But the bright demi-goddess realized this and acted accordingly. Although she was about to faint, she faked to be weaker than she truly was. The weaker she got, the more Nightmare Moon's grip loosened to make her approach death even slower. As Celestia felt that, if she waited just a moment longer, she would not be able to recover anymore, she finally started her surprise attack.

Putting all the strength and focus she had left together, she suddenly pushed herself upright and cast one more spell. All the time, Celestia had been wielding the elements of harmony and kept them invisible with many disguising spells. As soon as they uncloaked, Nightmare Moon's expression switched to one of shock.

The queen of the de manis could not react fast enough. The elements unleashed their power on her, thrusting Nightmare Moon up into the red sky. Already, the darkness around Celestia and the beam became blue again and Nightmare Moon desperately struggled with the rainbow colored beam of harmony.

Breathing and coughing, the demi-goddess of light tried to put all her thoughts on Luna. She closed her eyes and hoped that the beam would grant her the wish she longed for the most: freeing her sister from Nightmare Moon and destroying this monster.

The wicked mare of darkness created an arcane shield to block off the beam, but she could barely protect herself. Yet, the elements were working their magic longer than they usually should already. As the seconds passed, Nightmare Moon started to laugh again.

"Congratulations, Celestia! I did not expect that! But you can not purify me! Your heart is not in harmony anymore! You have seen too many horrors and your mind is too much in guilt!" she shouted.

Unfortunately, Nightmare Moon was correct. After all that had happened, Celestia was not able to focus anymore. She already was very weak and the elements of harmony drained her even more. It would not take much longer until she ran out of power and Nightmare Moon would escape the beam. Celestia had to think of something. Fast.

Her eyes suddenly jumped to the moon and an idea rushed through her mind. That was it! This is how she could turn this near defeat into a victory and rescue Equestria! But Nightmare Moon, too, understood what she was thinking, letting the evil red of her eyes return.

"Celestia, you fool! Do you even understand what you are about to do? If you seal Luna and me inside the moon, you claim its ownership! If light becomes so incredibly greedy and ignorant as to steal the greatest symbol of darkness, you will shatter the balance between the forces! You can not possibly grasp the consequences this will bring!" she shouted.

But Celestia made up her mind. It was the only way. If she would not do this, everyone and everything would die. This was the only option to save her subjects, her sister and the world.

As the bright demi-goddess focused on the moon, the queen of the de manis felt how she started fading away. Incredible rage filled her mind. This was the greatest act of betrayal light could possibly do to darkness. Thus, the red of the night intensified around Nightmare Moon again and even the moon itself became blood red in fury.

Suddenly, crimson red lines appeared in the sky behind Nightmare Moon, slowly forming to letters. One last time, the wicked mare of darkness began to laugh insanely.

"Very well. Do what you think you have to do. I could not care less. But keep one thing in mind, Celestia. This _harmony_ you try to create with my banishment is fake. You do not end the rage of darkness, but only prolong it. As time passes, you will see that all you achieved was to make your subjects suffer a lot more than they would have. My wrath will never end and I will not simply vanish like that," she spoke.

The queen of the de manis rose her head towards the red sky. The letters behind her started come together to two words.

"Darkness! Hear my calling! Take me, your harbinger of punishment, as the ultimate sacrifice for the strongest curse that had ever been spoken out! Tear me apart and scatter me over this corrupted land, so I may continue bringing horrors in your name! Shred me, so that I may continue to exist in the souls of those we despise the most! May my fragments and my cruelty be the seed for the destruction of the world! Equestria! I curse you with my madness!" she shouted.

As soon as she was done speaking, the message behind her completed. The words 'Maledictum Insania' hovered in the sky while the red darkness grabbed Nightmare Moon from behind and tore a part of her away, letting it escape from the elements of harmony.

Just a moment later, the rainbow beam completely washed over her and the wicked mare of darkness disappeared. Intense light filled the entire landscape and everything had become white.

Celestia did not know how much time had passed when she finally regained consciousness. But as she slowly opened her eyes, she realized that she was surrounded by a soft, dark blue. Slowly, she rose her head towards the sky. Her eyes filled with tears of relief and she began to smile as she realized that it was no longer red. The red darkness had vanished completely.

It was now that the demi-goddess of light realized how beautiful the night truly was. So many stars. So many pictures. And in the center of it all, there was this one star that glowed brighter than all the others. Luna must have put so much effort and time into perfecting the beauty of the night.

But then, Celestia saw the moon. It had changed. Instead of a shiny smooth surface, it now had dark spots, which, when seen together, looked like the head of an angry alicorn.

The smile on Celestia's face disappeared and incredible sadness filled her.

"Oh, Luna... what have I done to you... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." she spoke while her tears began to flow.

She kept on gazing at the now dreadful looking moon for a while longer, but then, she closed her eyes and her horn began to glow.

Slowly, the moon started to move. It sank more and more towards the horizon, while the first orange beams of dawn broke through the night. Finally, the shadow that had been placed over Equestria for weeks slid away to make space for the light. After all these weeks. After all this destruction and all this desperation, the sun finally rose again.


	10. Dawn of Madness

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

The first thing the citizens of Everfree noticed was that strange dark spots appeared on the moon. Then, the de manis started to retreat, along with the red darkness. But their confusion swiftly replaced with cheer as they saw that the moon slowly began to wander towards the horizon. As the first sunbeams fell across Equestria, the ponies busted out in celebration and many could not hold back their tears of joy and relief. While they were very weak all the time, the knowledge that the worst was over now fueled them with enough strength and hope to actually start jumping and dancing around.

Though their celebration was intermitted when Celestia teleported back to the city. The subjects were shocked to see her injured like this and immediately began to treat her wounds. But demi-goddesses are hard to finish off. Just a few hours later, due to a combination of the most advanced medical care of that time and powerful healing spells, the princess of the sun was able to stand and walk again. Yet, Celestia could obviously not go straight back to her duties. A few days of physical and mental recovery were necessary. This could easily be arranged, since the full scale of destruction in Equestria yet had to be determined first before the government could even think of starting to rebuild.

As the first day after Nightmare Moon's era of blood slowly came to an end, the subjects began to panic again. Naturally, after all they had been through, they became terrified of the night. So, at least for now, Celestia agreed to dramatically extend daytime in the entire land. The festival of Nightmare Moon's defeat and the sun's return would go on for three full days. That was about as much as Celestia could risk to keep the sun up, before it would start causing drought in the land.

The festivity of the sun's victory would slowly turn into the famous Summer Sun Celebration over the years.

It was the middle of the second day after Nightmare Moon's fall. The ponies of Equestria had once more proven their hardiness. Most of them were recovering very quickly. Music and glee filled Everfree like never before in its entire history. Yet, Celestia was not participating.

She was up in the castle, standing on the balcony where Luna once used to stand every night and watched her subjects celebrate. So many happy faces. So much joy. It almost felt like they already forgot the horrors they had been through.

Celestia's injuries were healing up quickly. Most of her bandages were no longer soaking through with blood already and she could walk just fine. Whenever one of her subjects looked up to the balcony, Celestia smiled back. But the truth was that the demi-goddess of light was not happy.

She missed her sister. She felt deep guilt over what she had done. The seal which kept both Nightmare Moon and Luna bound to the moon was permanent. Celestia would never see her sister again.

It was a very unworthy end for Luna in her opinion. All she ever wanted was company. She just did not want to be forgotten and now, it was like she never even existed.

After a while, Celestia could not endure standing on the balcony anymore and faking her smile down to the ponies who never even knew she had a sister. She turned around and slowly went back inside the castle, hanging her head. So many terrible things had happened. So much had changed. But of all events, the most recent ones were the ones most stuck in Celestia's mind.

"_Equestria! I curse you with my madness!"_

This line just would not leave her head. She saw what had happened. She saw how the red darkness ripped a part of Nightmare Moon away and dragged it out of the elements' beam. Was she really that powerful? Did a part of her truly escape from being sealed to the moon? If so, what consequences would this bring?

Before Celestia could think any further, she heard multiple hooves clattering towards her throne room. A large troop of royal guards came marching in, surrounding an almost equally large number of captives.

"Your highness. We were able to arrest the reapers," one of the guards spoke.

"All of them?" Celestia wondered.

"Yes. They surrendered to us and showed no attempt to fight back," the guard replied.

"How many are there in total?" the bright demi-goddess asked.

"Eighty-seven, your highness," the guard answered.

Celestia nodded and made a gesture to tell them that they should make space. The guards obeyed immediately and opened up the front row to give the bright demi-goddess direct sight on the reapers.

She slowly stepped towards them, her expression full of despise. Cursed traitorous ponies. They served Nightmare Moon just because they were too afraid of her. They prefered to kill others because they were too scared of dieing themselves.

The cloaks covered most of their bodies and faces, but they showed no expression. Their focus was lowered to the ground and it seemed like they lost any kind of motivation to do anything at all.

"Frankly, I do not know what to do with you. For your crimes, you deserve an immediate execution. Yet, I do not have the knowledge how to achieve this," Celestia spoke with anger and disgust in her voice.

"It is impossible now. We will never be able to find rest," one of the reapers suddenly started speaking.

The voice came from the middle of the group. The fact that it dared to speak to the princess of the sun without her permission angered her. But she held her emotions back as far as she could.

"You! The one who spoke to me! Step forth!" Celestia ordered.

The reapers made space and allowed one of them to come in front of Celestia. It was a silvery gray pegasus stallion with a dark gray mane.

"What is your name?" the bright demi-goddess wondered.

"Silverstream," the reaper answered.

"Very well. Silverstream. Tell me more," Celestia ordered.

"When Nightmare Moon cursed us, she claimed our mortality. She and her children were the only ones capable of ending our lives. Now that our mistress is gone, the purpose of our existence has become obsolete," the gray stallion explained.

"I would like to doubt that you can not be executed. I succeeded in defeating your mistress, so I will succeed in defeating you as well," the princess of the sun spoke sharply.

"You can try. We will not resist. Without a mistress, we have no one to serve anymore and no reason to exist," Silverstream replied.

Celestia's eyes narrowed. If she wouldn't know better, she could bet that the reapers seemed to be depressed over the fact that they lost their mistress. But she knew they were heartless killers with no emotions. No, Celestia shared no sympathy for these monsters.

"I have more important affairs to deal with currently, so you will have to wait for your execution. Guards! Bring them to the dungeon!" she ordered.

"Yes, your highness!" the royal guards replied and started walking away along with the reapers.

Celestia tracked the reapers until they went out of her line of sight with anger filled eyes. Directly after the last royal guard had left, she sighed and tried to resume her thoughts.

As much as she would have liked to resolve this problem quickly, she really needed to think about the meaning of Nightmare Moon's final words first. After what she had seen, she could not allow herself to be careless. The wicked mare of darkness pulled off many tricks to gain advantages. She somehow managed to learn curse magic from King Sombra, although he was sealed beneath the ice for hundreds of years already. She manipulated ponies and cursed them to gain more warriors for her war. Now, if a part of her could escape, then it was clear this would have a purpose, too. Where should she search and how?

Celestia knew that, soon, a time would come in which she would be extremely busy again. The reconstruction of Equestria would once more take up most of her attention and she would barely be able to even leave the castle. She also could not send any of her subjects to investigate the matter. Even though Nightmare Moon was gone, the de manis weren't. They might have retreated, but they were still roaming in the shadows.

The population of Equestria had reduced so much that all remaining ponies fit into a single city. So, for now, she needed to put most of her attention on preventing the extinction of her subjects. Standards once more would need to be overthrown for the sakes of the land.

The princess of the sun didn't know how long she had been thinking and planning already, since the sun did not move. But according to the city clocktower, at least 6 hours had passed.

By now, the music had stopped and it became a lot calmer in the city again. It seemed like the hyper mood of the ponies over the fact that they survived had made space to the realization of what had happened in the last weeks.

For a little while, the memories were pushed away. But now, they returned multiple times worse to the subjects.

Every now and then, a worried citizen came to Celestia, reporting that the other subjects started behaving strangely. Though Celestia thought she knew what their behavior meant. To her, it sounded like trauma. The ponies became nervous and anxious, easy to provoke and paranoid. It reminded her of how the ponies were acting the first few weeks after Luna and she had rescued Equestria. But soon, Celestia once more had to face that she misjudged the situation.

Another subject came storming in the throne room, crying and screaming. This reaction was by far the most intense she had seen yet, so Celestia put her notes aside and focused the approaching mare with a worried expression.

"What is it, my subject?" the bright demi-goddess wondered.

The mare could not reply immediately. She kept on nervously jumping in place and hyperventilating. After several seconds, she finally started speaking.

"She killed her!" the mare shouted.

Celestia's expression turned into one of of shock.

"Who? What happened?" she wondered.

"Watermelons! She killed Honeydew!" the mare shouted in desperation, unable to gain control over her breath and tears.

The princess of the sun could hardly believe what she just heard. Murder? A pony killing another pony? Aside of Nightmare Moon's kills while she took over Luna and subtracting the reapers' murders due to the fact that they are no ponies anymore, the last time that happened was more than a thousand years ago, while the pegasi were still warriors.

Celestia needed to see it with her own eyes. She ordered two royal guards to accompany her and they followed the mare back to the house where she had seen the kill happen.

It was a small wooden house at the edge of the city. Nearby was a mixed fruit farm, which offered apple trees, peach trees and various types of melon plants. The farmland belonged to the house owners.

Strange giggling could be heard from inside. The mare who brought Celestia here did not dare to come any closer. She knew that the murderer was still inside. So, Celestia and her two guards entered on their own.

The sight presented to them was shocking. The purple and green mare was sitting on the floor, covered in blood and grinning widely with blood-shot eyes while holding a blood-wetted knife in her right front leg. Next to her was an orange mare, laying in a large puddle of blood. Although she was dead, she still had an expression of shock on her face, as if she never expected something like this to happen.

Watermelons' eyes were glued to the ceiling, giving the impression of complete blankness. It were her eyes which shocked Celestia the most. This expression... this scene... it was so much like when she uncovered Nightmare Moon.

The guards carefully approached the mare from both sides. As one of them tried to take the blade out of her hoof, the insane mare suddenly began to laugh and swung the blade around wildly.

Celestia stopped her before she could do any more harm than already caused. She tore the knife out of her grip using a teleportation spell and placed it on a table next to her. As soon as the blade was out of the game, the guards could easily immobilize the mare.

"Why? Why did you do this?" the bright demi-goddess asked, trying to understand what was going on.

"Oh, I had to! She was so annoying! Always bragging about how much better her melons were compared to mine! I needed to shut her up!" Watermelons replied, her tone completely manic.

It was official now. This was the first case of a pony murdering another pony in the history of Equestria. Celestia couldn't understand this. Why was this happening? Why now that all the horrible things were over?

As the princess of the sun stared at Watermelons' face, she suddenly started seeing Nightmare Moon in her. It was now that Celestia noticed that there was a strange sensation about this insane mare. It was very close to that of the wicked mare of darkness.

All the sudden, realization kicked in. Celestia remembered Nightmare Moon's summoning, just before she was sealed away. She threatened that she would continue to exist in the souls of those she despises the most. Then, Celestia remembered the two crimson red words floating in the air, which appeared as Nightmare Moon summoned.

Maledictum Insania. In the native language of Equestria, this meant 'The Curse of Madness'.

Celestia understood now. Nightmare Moon sacrificed herself to speak a curse over Equestria that would cause its subjects to fall to insanity. This mare in front of the bright demi-goddess, struggling against the grip of the royal guards, was the first victim of this curse. Many more were yet to follow.

While the guards took her away, Celestia stood in place, paralyzed over the realization. Watermelons got dragged to the Everfree dungeon. On her way there, she kept on laughing and shouting all the time.

"My watermelons are the best in all of Equestria! There is no denying it! Mine are the best and if you say otherwise, I'm gonna kill you! You hear me? I'm gonna kill you!"


	11. Revenant

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

"Pffff, don't make me laugh, Melly. All of Everfree City knows your fruits are horrible," Honeydew mocked.

"Hmph! But at least mine are still growing, unlike _your_ stupid melons!" Watermelons countered.

"Well, even so, your melons are just horrible! They are nothing but water!" her sister replied.

"And you think your honeydews are any better?" the purple earth pony mare questioned.

"Of course! How else do you explain that nopony wants your fruits and mine are being taken as soon as I offer them each time?" Honeydew asked back.

"Please, girls! Both of you, calm down! It doesn't matter anyway, since we barely have enough crops left to make it ourselves and we still don't get any money for offering them," a third mare replied.

"Oh, be quiet, Lindy! Why are you in here anyway? Go back to the kitchen and finish those fruit cakes!" Watermelons shouted.

Intimidated, the yellow-grayish teenage filly slowly backed away and returned to the kitchen.

Just one day after the sun returned to Equestria, the two sisters were already behaving like always again. The Melon family never was a very big one, but the de manis and reapers had nearly extincted them. Honeydew and 'Melly' were pretty much the only two members left. The siblings never got along well, but they somehow managed to put their differences and sisterly competition aside during the crisis. Now that it was over, the bickering between the two of them was as bad as ever.

When Lindy was done washing her hooves and returned to the dough for the fruit cakes, she sighed. Never did she imagine that, when she first came to Everfree more than a year ago to look for work, this small mixed fruits farm would end up being her permanent home due to losing her parents. Before Nightmare Moon came, she planned to return to Manechester. But that was impossible now.

The first time Lindy heard that the city got entirely destroyed, she refused to believe it. But then she got the notification of her parent's death. Reading that letter was one of the most painful things she had ever done. She could only hope that the rest of her family was still alive.

Now, she was on her own, stuck with these two mares constantly teasing each other. Yet, something was strange. She knew they were occasionally pranking and mocking one another. But lately, their fights started getting out of hoof. Lindy never heard them shouting like that before and they looked even a lot more stressed than during the era of Nightmare Moon. Especially Watermelons was acting oddly. Sometimes, it seemed like she was talking to herself. This would not be so super strange if it wasn't for the fact that, when she did that, she tended to not notice other ponies around her. This went so far that she could not even hear others speak to her anymore. Only a tap on her shoulder could snap her out of it, which always startled her heavily.

Lindy was glad that the sun had finally returned and the de manis were gone. But she had no idea how things were supposed to go on now. So much had been destroyed. So many had died. Equestria was in ruins and everypony was a complete mess.

A sweet aroma filled the air, signaling Lindy that the fruit cakes were done baking. Already while opening the oven, she could see that they turned out great. This was not a big surprise, though, since baking was her special talent. But it still was difficult to pull off a decent pastry with the very limited resources the fruit farm still had. The yellow-grayish mare just hoped that they would taste just as good as they smelled. Hopefully, this will calm the sisters a bit.

Ten minutes later, Lindy served the fruit cakes to Honeydew and Watermelons. At first, it seemed like her plan worked out, since they thanked and complimented her while hastily devouring the cakes with happy faces. Like most ponies, they were half starved. Lindy herself wasn't quite at the peak of her health either, but she was used to being hungry. The farm had never been running very successfully. There was hardly enough money to feed the three of them, so Lindy had to learn how to deal with hunger. For now, she was just happy she could make the sisters happy.

But after a while, they suddenly stopped eating and stared at their fruit cakes with suspicion filled expressions. Lindy already started getting worried. Did she mess something up? Was something wrong with the flour she used?

"Lindy," Honeydew finally spoke.

"Y-yes?" Lindy replied.

"What type of melon did you use for them?" Honeydew wondered.

"M-Melons?" the teenage filly asked back.

"Yes. You did use a honeydew, right? I can taste it in there," the orange mare stated.

Watermelons instantly placed her plate hard to the ground and gained a furious expression.

"Again?! Are you kidding me, Dew?!" she shouted.

"Hey, its not my fault my melons are better than yours!" Honeydew shouted back.

"A-a-actually. I-I didn't use-" Lindy tried to explain, but couldn't bring the attention back to her.

"Having you as a sister is like a curse! You never ever shut up about your damn honeydews! I had it with you! I so very had it with you!" the purple mare shouted.

"Oh and you think _I_ enjoy being stuck around you? Guess what! I'd rather die than spending just another day in the same house as you! But we are both stuck here and thats just how it is!" Honeydew shouted again before returning to her fruit cake.

Watermelons had enough. She needed to leave the room and quickly went past Lindy and into the kitchen.

She just couldn't take this anymore. She never appreciated her sister much, but in the last hours, she learned to hate her with all her heart.

If only she would shut up just for once. If only she could make her shut that constantly bragging mouth.

"_I'd rather die than spending just another day in the same house as you!"_

This line suddenly repeated itself in Watermelons' head. Something caused her to stop.

"_I'd rather die!"_

Watermelons' eyes wandered around the room in search. Something told her that she could solve her problems easily with just a single tool in this room.

"_I'd rather die!"_

"_I'd rather die!"_

"_I'd rather die!"_

"_Die!"_

"_Die!"_

Her eyes wandered over to the sink. Inside was a knife. Lindy had just used it to cut the fruits for her pastry. It seemed oddly attractive to her.

"_Die!"_

"_Kill!"_

"_Kill her!"_

Watermelons' eyes slowly went wide open as she realized what she had to do. As the thought wandered through her head, growing more and more in appeal, she started grinning in anticipation.

The purple mare picked up the knife with her mouth and went back to the living room. Lindy tracked her, but Honeydew refused to honor her sister with a glance.

Watermelons stepped in front of her sister, moving the knife from her mouth to her right front leg. Such an arrogant thing. If she would only look to see what was coming. But actually... no. It was better this way.

"Dew?" the purple mare started.

"What?" her sister replied in a very annoyed tone, still eating her fruit cake.

"You said you would rather die than live another day with me?" Watermelons resumed.

"Yeah. So what?" Honeydew questioned.

"That can be arranged!" the purple mare replied in a hysterical tone.

Lindy was watching the whole time. She saw Melly approach her sister with a knife, but she honestly did not expect her to actually ram it in her chest.

Honeydew's eyes went wide open and she dropped her plate as the knife pierced through her lung. As she lifted her head, she saw a face that was creepier than any de manis. Watermelons was grinning at her like a maniac with wide open, blood-shot eyes.

Watermelons withdrew the knife from her sister's body, only to ram it inside once more. This time, she pierced her heart. Honeydew placed her front legs on her sister's shoulders, looking for support. But that only encouraged her to keep stabbing her over and over again.

Lindy stood in the door frame, watching the scene in trauma. The blood sprayed all over the purple mare and slowly, the wooden floor became soaked as well.

Ultimately, Lindy brought herself out of her shock and started running away. Panicking, she fled out of the house and cried heavily while she instinctively aimed for Everfree Castle.

Just one day later, as the festivity came to an end, Honeydew's funeral was being held in Everfree's graveyard outside the city. The only ponies partaking were Lindy and Princess Celestia. The reason why this ceremony was held so swiftly after Honeydew's death was due to the very special and tragic conditions. All of Equestria was still covered in rotting pony corpses and they all needed to be buried. So, the funeral was cut very short.

The yellow-grayish teenage filly was still traumatized and she kept crying in front of the grave the whole time. Even after both Celestia and she decided to go, she could not stop crying.

The demi-goddess of the sun unfolded her left wing over the teenager, trying to comfort her. The era of Nightmare Moon had left its marks on Celestia and changed her behaviour. She now cared a great deal about other ponies feelings and tried to help them with limitless tolerance and patience.

"What is your name, my dear subject?" she asked gently.

"I... I'm... Lindanella Christine Pie... but all my friends call me Lindy Pie," the young mare replied.

"A very unique name," Celestia commented.

"Yeah... its an ancient Equestrian... My family is a very old one. We were one of Equestria's first inhabitants. The roots of my family tree go all the way back to the foundation of the land," Lindy explained.

"I see," the princess of the sun responded. "What do you plan to do now?"

"I... have no idea..." the teenage filly answered.

"If you wish to, you can stay in the castle for a while," Celestia offered.

"That would be... nice, I think... Thank you," Lindy agreed.

"You are very welcome," Celestia replied with a smile.

Lindy had stopped crying by now, but she still looked very depressed. She had seen more than she should have seen at her age. No. Nopony should ever have to see something like this. The bright demi-goddess sighed shortly and spoke up again.

"I am so very sorry you had to see this. I do not know how your relationship to her was, but I imagine that you liked her alot. If you ever wish to speak to somepony, you can come to me. I may not be available all the time due to all the work I need to do, but never be afraid to let me know if there is anything I can do for you," she offered.

Lindy smiled weakly in response and they both headed back to the castle, while Celestia slowly let the sun go down.

Despite the ponies being very drained after three full days of constant sunlight, they still were terrified of the night. Just like before Nightmare Moon's rise, the subjects instantly hid away as the moon began to wander across the sky, begging it would go down again soon. But ultimately, they had to admit that they were all very tired and needed the dark hours to sleep.

Celestia, though, did not even think about resting. She stood on the castle balcony and watched the moon. It felt like it gazed down on Celestia in hate and disgust over her actions, which seemed appropriate to her. Still, the demi-goddess of light could not allow herself to drown in her guilt. She needed to push those memories in the far back of her mind in order to concentrate on what was important.

After a while, Celestia turned around and started walking to the castle dungeon. Even though she was still recovering and drained, she needed to use every single moment she got to research this curse Nightmare Moon had spoken upon Equestria.

While on the one hoof, it was tragic to see how soon it started showing its effects, it also gave her an advantage. This very early discovery enabled her to begin her research and take measures to prevent things from getting worse. Hopefully, she would find a way to lift Maledictum Insania before another pony would have to die.

It was silent in the Everfree graveyard now. Nopony, not even the graveyard keeper, had come here for a few hours. It was now that something strange started happening to Honeydew's grave.

Noises could be heard from beneath. Slowly, it seemed like the freshly shoveled dirt started to move. The noises gradually became louder, until they became recognizable as desperate, agony-filled and exhausted crying.

Finally, an orange hoof rose out of the grave.

"I will repeat my question: Why did you kill her?" Celestia asked, trying hard to maintain her patience.

"Melons... Always melons. All day long... Hehehehe! Never shuts up. She just never shuts her mouth. Needed to mute her. Close that mouth... Hehehe! Silence! Sweet, sweet silence!" Watermelons kept on mumbling, giggling in a high pitch every now and then.

Celestia sighed. It seemed hopeless. This murderous pony was completely absent-minded.

"Fine. If you don't speak to me, I am unable to help you. I will just have to keep you in here until-" she started.

"Shut up, Celestia! Just shut up!" The insane mare suddenly started yelling. "I need to silence you, too! Come on! Come in here! Let me see your blood!"

The bright demi-goddess watched as the crazy mare reached her right front leg out of her prison cell, trying to grab her with this demented expression of her's. Such irrational behaviour. It made no sense to Celestia.

She tried to interview Watermelons for a while now, but it seemed like she was barely paying attention. The crazy mare kept on babbling things that made no sense or kept on repeating herself over and over again. This sudden reaction to Celestia was actually the most focused one she had gotten from her so far.

Watermelons slowly turned around, looking into the prison cell next to her.

"Hey! Reapers! Lend me a scythe, will you? I want to chop her head off!" she demanded.

The reapers did not react to her at all. They just maintained their meditative positions and kept their eyes shut. Only one of them actually stood at the prison cell door, watching Celestia and Watermelons with no kind of expression. The same silvery gray stallion who had spoken to the bright demi-goddess yesterday: Silverstream.

Yet, he as well ignored the curse afflicted mare's request and just kept watching. He seemed to be the only one still interested in what was happening around him. The only one who was not just waiting for his execution.

Still, Celestia hated him just as much as she hated all the other reapers. He may behave differently, but he is just as guilty as all of them. After giving him a despise-filled gaze, she returned her focus to Watermelons.

By now, the insane mare had given up on the reapers and let herself drop to the ground with a frustrated sigh.

"It was fun. I want more. Wanna kill more ponies. So much better than growing fruits... Silence... Hehehe! Sweet, wonderful silence!" she mumbled, at first bored, then manic again.

Celestia slowly shook her head. It was useless. Her research on the insane mare gave her no progress. She decided to end it here and return to the castle archives.

"Guards! Keep a close eye on the murderer and the reapers! Report any suspicious behaviour to me immediately" Celestia ordered.

"Yes, your highness!" the five royal guards currently present in the dungeon responded.

While several things Nightmare Moon said about Celestia were correct, she certainly was not cruel like the queen of the de manis. With the help of the spells she was researching, she hoped to uncurse Watermelons and return her to normal.

Now that she was on the matter anyway, she also researched the reaper curse. She already had an idea how she would be able to lift it. Maledictum Insania, though, was a lot harder. The princess of the sun could not even begin to understand this curse.

The hours went by and Celestia started getting very tired. Due to her research, she was now capable to at least manipulate the reaper curse. But Nightmare Moon really outdid herself. It was extremely complex and well thought through.

It seemed like the reaper curse completely centered around the role of a mistress. Silverstream was correct when he said that only direct greater authorities of the reapers had power over them. But so far, that was all Celestia understood.

Since it was very late and she could hardly concentrate anymore, the bright demi-goddess decided to end her research for tonight. On her way to the bed chamber, she stepped out on the balcony again to gaze into the stars.

Celestia never showed much appreciation for Luna's work. Now, she was regretting it. She could spend hours just watching the sky. There was so much to explore and each night, it looked a little bit different. It was too late now, Celestia knew this. But still, she felt that she owed Luna showing some appreciation for this great masterpiece.

Then, the princess of the sun lowered her head down to the city. At night, it looked so different. No lights, no ponies on the streets, no noises. Everything was silent and dyed in soft blue moonlight. How could she have missed all this out for such a long time, Celestia wondered.

Suddenly, she spotted something move on the streets. It had the silhouette of a pony, but it was moving oddly, as if it was heavily injured.

Celestia became suspicious. Could it be a de manis, trying a new trick to get into the city? She definitely was not going to wait until morning to find out.

Casting a teleportation spell, she brought herself right in front of the creature. The bright demi-goddess' eyes went wide open in disbelief of what she was seeing.

This mare... she was the victim of the fruit farm murder! Honeydew! How could she be alive?

The orange mare gave off the smell of rotting flesh and looked horrible. Her eyes had lost the shine of life and she gagged and moaned in agony, tear trails washing down her face. She still had mortal injuries, but they were no longer bleeding, which was paradox. But the more Celestia tried to understand what she was seeing, the more it got through to her.

Even though Honeydew was walking around, she was still dead.


	12. New Destiny

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

Honeydew was immediately brought to a seclusive section of Castle Everfree. At first, Celestia tried to help the undead pony by casting healing spells on her. But they had no effect, since she was already dead.

As the morning came, the bright demi-goddess ordered a doctor to the castle and made him swear to keep silent of what he was going to see. Celestia may know a lot, but she had to face that her medical knowledge was not enough to really do anything to ease the pain of this tragic creature.

The doctor was given all medical resources available in the castle in hope he could do something to rescue Honeydew. Yet, Celestia could not just stand by and watch. She had to remain focused. There was so much to do.

Hours passed, which she used to further investigate curse magic. Finally, she had a breakthrough. After long, precise and painstaking research, she ultimately understood how the reaper curse worked. At least she was capable of lifting this one now and noted down the formula on a scroll, hiding it away immediately after she finished writing.

Maledictum Insania, though, remained a big problem. Understanding the reaper curse alone was very difficult, but the curse of madness was a whole lot more complex. The biggest issue was that Celestia barely understood what it did. All she knew so far was that it was a direct bond between Nightmare Moon and the ponies of Equestria, causing them to become insane due to the evil queen's cruelty and madness.

But Celestia also had to think of the most recent events. Walking, undead ponies? Such a thing never happened ever before and the fact that this undead was the victim of Watermelons made it all the more suspicious. The chances were high that this, too, was a possible effect of Maledictum Insania. The only way to make sure of this would be by studying her more.

The princess of the sun left the castle archives and started walking back to the room where Honeydew was hidden.

In the meantime, Lindy Pie was sitting in her guest room on the other side of Castle Everfree. Her condition slowly grew worse. She just couldn't stop thinking about the things she had seen. She knew the Melon sisters were fighting a lot... but... _this_. Oh no. She never would have imagined that _this_ would ever happen.

Lindy was smart enough to not leave Everfree City during the entire era of Nightmare Moon. She heard all the terrible stories of ponies getting gutted and eaten alive, cities burning to ashes and much, much worse. But she hadn't seen any of this herself. So, of course, it caught her completely off guard to see a murder happen right in front of her very eyes just days after the worst was over.

But what confused her the most was how she took those events. At first, she was just shocked. Then, she was deeply mournful over Honeydew's death. But now, the more the scene repeated itself in her head, the less it unsettled her.

Lindy even tried to precisely remember every detail of what had happened. She tried to memorize where every little drip of blood landed. She tried to focus on the expression Honeydew had while her sister stabbed her to death. She tried to remember the precise motion of the knife as it penetrated Honeydew's chest over and over again. For some strange and macabre reason, she found these memories interesting.

Slowly, her trauma, shock and fear started slipping into something entirely different. Something she knew very well was extremely weird for her to feel: Curiosity.

While sitting in front of a mirror and looking at herself, she tried to imagine her own face as that of Watermelons while she murdered her sister. This expression she had... those creepy eyes. That creepy grin. Watermelons seemed so... happy.

The more Lindy tried to resume her face, the more her mind focused on the blood she was covered in. It was even more fascinating than the purple mare's expression. Lindy didn't get it. Why? Why was this so fascinating?

Blood. A strange liquid. It had such a strong color. Such an intense red. It was actually quite... pretty.

Suddenly, Lindy Pie's focus came back to the present. While still staring at her own reflection, she realized that she was smiling at the thought of blood. The teenage filly became creeped out by herself and shook her head wildly. She knew she really shouldn't think this way. It was just wrong. So, she figured that she should distract herself and started walking through the castle, looking for the kitchen.

The door opened by magic and Celestia entered. Honeydew was still in horrible condition and shaking all over while lying on the bed. The doctor sat right next to her, rubbing his chin while studying the undead mare.

"Well? Any progress?" Celestia asked while approaching.

The doctor closed his eyes and shook his head in frustration.

"I have no idea what you expect of me, your highness. I can't perform miracles. I know she is still moving, but seriously, she should be dead by now. She has no pulse, lethal injuries and next to no blood in her veins. I tried everything I could think of. I stitched the cuts, gave her blood packs and medication... How she is still with us is beyond me," he replied.

The bright demi-goddess' expression turned into a sad one and she let out a small sigh. Honeydew was looking at her with tear trails and an expression of unimaginable sorrow and agony.

"Help... me..." she begged with a voice so weak, it was barely anything more than a whisper.

"I will do whatever I can to put you out of this situation, my dear subject. Just seeing you like this makes me suffer as well... Doctor. Thank you for your time. If there is nothing else you can do for her, then you are free to leave now. I will take care of this myself," Celestia spoke.

"As you wish, your highness. And don't worry. My lips are sealed," the doctor ensured before packing his medical instruments and leaving.

On his way out of the castle, the doctor was deeply sunken in thoughts. This was something he had never seen before and the fact that Princess Celestia herself asked him for assistance meant that he had just been part in something bigger. This occupied him so much that he didn't realize how sloppily he had packed his medial tools.

One of his scalpels was loosely hanging out of the doctor's case. As he went down the main corridor of the castle, it finally fell out. The scalpel landed on the carpet, preventing it from making any noise the doctor might have heard.

"You want to what now?" one of the cooks of the castle asked with a unbelieving expression.

"B-bake... if that is okay with you. It's my special talent and it... well... relaxes me..." Lindy explained.

"And what were you planning to waste castle resources on?" the cook wondered, mild anger in her voice.

"J-just a small p-pie... Nothing big just... anything to distract me," Lindy spoke lowly.

"Come on now, Blueberry," another cook started. "She is Princess Celestia's special guest and we have plenty of ingredients. I am sure we can spare some, don't you think so, too?"

The first cook let out a small sigh.

"You are right. Sorry there. We are all a bit under tension still. The last weeks had been really hard. You can bake whatever you want," she spoke.

"Thanks..." Lindy spoke.

It took her awhile to find the ingredients she needed. The castle kitchen was huge and had an even much bigger storage room. They had ingredients she could only have dreamed of during the time of Nightmare Moon.

Finally, Lindy Pie decided to make a strawberry tart. She always liked strawberries the most and it had been quite a while since she was last able to work with them. But this time, she picked them out of another reason as well. She realized this while she started cutting the fruits. Seeing the red juice covering the knife and slowly staining the cutting board was oddly appealing to her. She also enjoyed to watch the blade slide through the fruit and observed closely, making each cut very slow on purpose.

After she finished the last fruit, she kept on staring at the knife for a short while. She watched the strawberry juice run along the blade to the sharp tip, forming a drip which then fell down on the cutting board. Then she watched the reflection in the knife. She could see several cook ponies behind her, all of them preparing their own dishes. Somehow, she liked the idea to bring them in reference to the red stained blade in her front hooves.

Just as she realized what she was thinking, Lindy placed the knife aside and started working on the dough. She knew something was seriously wrong with her to even think something like that. But no matter what she tried, the curiosity soon resurfaced.

As she finished the tart, the teenage filly started cleaning up. It somehow disappointed her to watch the strawberry juice wash off the cutting board and knife. For a moment, she toyed with the idea to take the knife with her. But then she thought it would be very ungrateful to steal from the princess after she had been so kind as to let her temporarily move into the castle. That, and the fact that just too many ponies were watching.

Lindy wasn't even interested in tasting the tart. She just gifted it to the cooks and went back to her guest room.

Celestia spent some time with Honeydew to calm her before she had to return to her duties. After she went down into the castle dungeon, she immediately began to observe Watermelons.

The insane mare was rolling around on the floor, humming some song the bright demi-goddess was not familiar with. Randomly, she either busted out in laughter or began to cry.

"She has been acting like this for a few hours now," a voice from the prison cell next to her spoke.

Celestia's focus wandered over to the reapers again. Once more, Silverstream stood in front of the cell door.

"What do you care, monster?" the princess of the sun wondered with an angry expression.

"I may be unable to feel regret, but I prefer doing anything over just waiting for my execution," the reaper answered.

"You will not have to worry about that for much longer. I solved the secret around the reaper curse. You will all be executed as soon as I have dealt with the other 'gifts' your former mistress had left behind," Celestia explained.

"Other gifts?" Silverstream wondered.

"None of your concern," the bright demi-goddess replied sharply.

A moment of silence passed while Celestia returned her focus to the insane mare. Silverstream's next comment was something the princess of the sun did not expect to hear.

"I suppose you mean Maledictum Insania? After what I have been observing so far on this insane mare, it very much does look like the work of our mistress," he asked.

Celestia's eyes went wide open and she refocused the reaper. The other reapers as well where looking at him, but none of them were acting. It seemed like they did not care about anything anymore.

"How do you know about that?" the bright demi-goddess wondered.

"Mistress Nightmare Moon was very open to us. We were her elite warriors, so she entrusted us most of her plans. It seems like she was very sure she would win and this knowledge would never end up in your hooves. Anyhow, she did have plans in case things would not develop to her preference," Silverstream explained.

"Very well... Why are you telling me all this?" Celestia questioned.

"We may not be ponies anymore, but we used to be your subjects. Our mistress is gone, so we have no one to serve anymore. What does it matter now if I give you knowledge Nightmare Moon does not want you to know when we will soon be executed anyway? I simply wish to be of use for anything one last time before I face my punishment," the reaper spoke.

Celestia became mute for a moment. This was something she did not consider. The knowledge of the reapers could actually be a huge help to her. But could she really take the risk to believe them? Or was this just a trick?

The demi-goddess of light was very powerful. She had already proven that she could take on a reaper and with her new knowledge, she now would be able to kill one in combat. Celestia decided to put the reapers to test.

"Guards! Bring me the reaper Silverstream!" she ordered.

Moments later, the prison cell door opened and four royal guards dragged the silvery gray stallion out and in front of her.

"You want to be of use? Then I will grant you a chance to be of use. Come with me. I want you to see something... Just so we are clear: If you just do one wrong step, I will instantly execute you," Celestia commanded.

The reaper nodded and started walking back upstairs with the princess.

The bright demi-goddess guided Silverstream through rarely used parts of the castle to avoid spreading unneeded panic among the servants. Then, they arrived in the room of Honeydew. Even though she was a living corpse, she reacted heavily to the sight of the reaper, jumping out of the bed and cowering behind it.

"There is no need to be afraid, my dear subject. We are only here to help you," Celestia assured.

Silverstream stepped to the foot of the bed and stared at the undead mare while she cowered on the ground, crying in fear and agony. Nearly a minute passed before the reaper turned around again.

"Yes. This is definitely Maledictum Insania that affects her. I can feel Mistress Nightmare Moon's presence in her. She forces her soul to remain stuck in her dead body," he explained.

"How can we save her?" Celestia asked.

"Not at all. She is already dead. We can not bring her back to life, but we can end her suffering," the reaper replied.

This answer did not please the princess of the sun, but she had to admit she had the same thoughts before. She took herself a moment, watching the desperate expression of Honeydew, before she finally asked.

"Then how do you plan to free her? I do not want her to suffer any more than she already does," Celestia wondered.

"If you allow me..." Silverstream stated, turning his head sideways.

A second later, his reaper scythe appeared in front of his face and he grabbed it with his mouth. Celestia instantly went into battle stance and readied a spell, though Silverstream did not go into battle stance himself.

"I do not aim to fight you, Princess," he stated.

"Knowing you reapers, this is just a valid precaution. As I said, one bad movement and I will execute you. Anyway, what makes you believe this scythe will be able to do what other tools could not?" Celestia wondered.

"When it comes to curses, Mistress Nightmare Moon does not make mistakes. She made us as lethal as thinkably possible. This scythe is not just a weapon, but also a harvesting tool for souls. Since she created this weapon, using it against another of her curses would cause a conflict, giving us a chance to bypass the laws of Maledictum Insania," Silverstream explained.

"That indeed does make sense," the bright demi-goddess admitted.

Her focus returned to Honeydew. She heard all they were talking about and by now, she stopped shaking and slowly got up again.

"I am so very sorry, my dear subject. There is nothing I can do to save you. But at least, we might be capable of ending your suffering. Are you willing to accept this?" Celestia asked.

Very insecurely, Honeydew nodded. Anything was better than this agonizing existence, stuck inside a rotting shell. She just wanted it to end, no matter how.

Her breath quickened as the reaper came closer. When he stood just in front of her, she couldn't take the tension anymore. The undead mare pressed her eyes shut, tensed every last muscle in her body and shook violently all over.

Fortunately, the reaper avoided to let her remain in this situation of extreme stress and fear for more than the fraction of a second. With just one quick swing, he sliced her head off, killing her instantly without any pain. As the body collapsed to the ground, a small orange sphere lifted out of it, rising to the ceiling and disappearing.

"It worked," Silverstream commented while letting his scythe disappear again.

"Hm... very well... At least she does not have to suffer anymore. Poor thing..." Celestia commented.

The reaper kept on gazing at the corpse with no kind of expression. He had just killed this undead mare as if it was nothing. Even though Celestia had split feelings about this, seeing that he had none whatsoever only further confirmed her impression of those monstrous killers. But while they were at the topic, Celestia just had to keep asking.

"What do you know about Maledictum Insania?" she wondered.

"It is a curse of unimaginable complexity and cruelty. Mistress Nightmare Moon created it with the intention of being unliftable. It ensures her continuing existence, no matter what may happen to her. She mostly created it as a long-term plan to continue bringing punishment to Equestria in case she would fall. Since it ensures that she will continue to exist, it also protects the de manis from being destroyed due to her fall," Silverstream explained.

"What are the effects?" Celestia kept asking.

"There are various ones. As you have seen yourself, it mostly causes ponies to become insane and violent. But also, from the moment it was spoken out, all ponies that die in this land now will come back as undead ponies. Mistress Nightmare Moon hinted that it has more effects relating to the de manis, but she did not share this knowledge with us," the reaper answered.

"The de manis..." the princess of the sun mumbled to herself.

Her scouts had told her that the de manis had completely retreated. There was no sign of them anymore and they were clueless where these sinister beasts could have gone to. Now that Celestia heard that Maledictum Insania was in some way connected to them, she knew that their behaviour was planned. They were preparing for something.

The bright demi-goddess was about to ask another question when she noticed the reaper doing something very disturbing. While she was sunken in thoughts, he had started eating the dead body of Honeydew.

"What do you think you are doing?!" she asked in shock.

Silverstream wiped the blood off from his mouth and swallowed before he could speak.

"Feeding myself. Reapers are omnivores. We need to consume flesh. Pony flesh preferably," he explained.

Celestia was scandalized. Using a teleportation spell, she made the corpse disappear and land back inside Honeydew's grave outside of the city.

"I warned you, reaper. But before I execute you, I wish to know why you did this in front of my eyes," the princess of the sun demanded.

"I did this on purpose. I simply aimed to give you more information about us. You said yourself we will all be executed very soon. It does not matter if I die now or later," Silverstream answered.

This was surprisingly reasonable. Celestia had to admit that this reaper was a lot more cooperative than she imagined. While she would not have felt right about executing him now after he had been so helpful, she still would not allow something like this to happen. Especially here in the middle of Everfree City.

"Equestria is a land of herbivores. I will _not_ tolerate the consumption of any type of meat. You are immortal anyway. You do not need to eat, so there is no excuse for this," the bright demi-goddess declared.

"There actually is. The reason why we feed on meat and even prefer pony flesh is because we contain de manis inside us," the reaper stated.

"De manis?! Inside you?!" Celestia spoke in disbelief.

"Yes. Mistress Nightmare Moon showed us how to consume de manis in order to gain strength. They even volunteered to be consumed by us. Each time we absorb one, we gain its strength and abilities, but in return also become more like de manis ourselves. As a result of that, we have to feed like them in order to maintain our strength," Silverstream explained.

This knowledge changed the situation now. Reapers are not only capable of freeing undead ponies and help investigate Maledictum Insania, they are also effective _against_ de manis!

Yet, having learned this made the bright demi-goddess furious. Her enemies had so many advantages over her. All alone, fighting against the curse of madness would be nearly impossible. But they would...

No. What was she thinking, Celestia wondered. Was she seriously considering to recruit the reapers? After all they had done? This would be highly immoral, no matter how you look at it.

The princess of the sun had enough for the moment. She needed to sort her thoughts again before she could make any decisions, so she brought the reaper back into the dungeon.

Fifteen minutes later, Celestia found herself walking up and down her throne room, throwing a look at the scroll she created every now and then.

The things she had just learned overthrew all she had planned. If she lifted the reaper curse now and executed those she held captive in her dungeon right now, she might lose her only chance to make some serious progress on Maledictum Insania and the de manis.

All on her own, Celestia would not be able to fight Nightmare Moon's children. From the moment on she sealed the wicked mare of darkness and her sister into the moon, she became unable to use the elements of harmony anymore. Both Luna and she were their keepers. They both were required to be present in the same world in order to use them. Now, no creature in the world would ever be able to wield them again. The only weapon Celestia had against the de manis had become useless.

Again, the bright demi-goddess spent several seconds staring at the scroll. Just morally speaking, she _had_ to execute the reapers. What kind ruler would she be if she let them get away with mass murder and betrayal?

But what would the consequences be? Only reaper scythes can free undead ponies from their torments. Only reapers are effective against de manis. Only reapers have the knowledge of Nightmare Moon's plans. If she executed them, all this would be lost.

Celestia was forced to make a decision. She could either try to fight an already very difficult war against the curse of madness all on her own, or she had to create a horrible precedent.

The princess of the sun kept walking up and down her throne room, sunken in thoughts. Minutes passed by, half an hour, a full hour, until she finally made up her mind. No matter how she looked at it, she had no choice.

Celestia let the scroll levitate by magic and quickly went back to the castle archives, hiding it in a place she was sure of where only she would find it again. Then, she went to the dungeon. As soon as she entered, she gave out an order to her guards.

"Everypony, please give me the keys and leave," she requested.

The royal guards were clearly confused, but still figured she had her reasons to demand this. As soon as the last of them left the dungeon, she opened the reapers' prison cell.

"Reapers, step in front of me!" she commanded.

A bit unwillingly, the reapers came outside, maintaining their muteness.

"Silverstream. Step forth!" Celestia ordered again.

The silvery gray pegasus stallion took a few steps out of the crowd and in front of Celestia, focusing her with his dull black eyes and expressionless face. Already, she began to hate herself for what she was going to say.

"As I said before, you all deserve punishment for your actions. No matter what, there is no excuse for your crimes. You betrayed me and all of Equestria in the worst possible ways by following Nightmare Moon. But she is gone now. The situation has changed, and so has yours. To your great fortune, I have to admit that not only I, but the entire land is in need for you. Without a mistress, you have no purpose in your existence anymore. So here is the deal. I shall become your new mistress and give you a new destiny. In return, I demand your loyalty. What do you say, reapers? Are you willing to serve me?" Celestia asked.

Even though reapers have no emotions, she managed to get them wide-eyed with her extremely unexpected offer. It seemed to have caught them so unprepared that they even started looking among each other to see what they were thinking. Half a minute passed until Silverstream decided to break the silence and act in behalf of all of them. He suddenly kneeled down before the bright demi-goddess.

"Yes, my mistress," he spoke.

Immediately, the other reapers followed his example and kneeled down as well. That sealed it. From now on, Celestia was not only the ruler of all of Equestria and the master of sun and moon, but also the mistress of the reapers.

When Lindy returned to her room, she was holding a scalpel in her mouth. She had found it laying on the carpet in the main corridor and just couldn't help it but to pick it up.

There was something about it that fascinated her. So shiny. So sharp. It was a more than satisfying compensation for the missed opportunity to take a knife from the kitchen.

By now, it was getting late. No servants were walking around anymore, so she could just sit on the floor and inspect the scalpel in her front hooves. Lindy just didn't understand what was happening to her. But the more time passed, the less she cared. The thoughts of sharp objects and red liquids became more and more pleasing to her.

After a while, Lindy wanted to know how sharp this scalpel truly was. But how could she test it? There was nothing nearby that would come even close to the material this instrument is intended to be used with.

Suddenly, she had an idea. The grabbed the handle of the scalpel with her mouth and carefully slid the blade across her left front leg. Although it hurt, it was not as bad as she imagined it to be. She only made a shallow cut, but it already caused her to bleed a little.

Lindy watched the red liquid spring out of her self-inflicted wound, clustering together to a single drop, which then slowly flew down her front leg. She found herself deeply fascinated by her own blood.

Such a strange liquid. Such an intense color. The essence of life itself, yet feared by so many. But not by her. Oh no. Lindy wasn't afraid to look. In fact, she wanted to see more.

Carefully, she deepened the cut a little, causing more blood to flow out. It had such a strange appeal. Lindy began to wonder... can you actually smell blood? She never tried.

After sniffing her wound a few times, she gained a disappointed expression. She could not smell anything. But as she approached to try again, a bit of blood touched her nose.

Lindy twitched lightly after she realized that. She wasn't so sure what to do right now. Then, once again, curiosity took over. What does blood actually taste like?

Very hesitantly, she placed the scalpel back in her front legs and stuck out her tongue to lick up the drip on her nose. Her eyes immediately grew wide as the flavor struck her. This was so unlike anything she ever tasted! It was warm, metallic, a little bit salty. But most of all, it had an amazing sweetness to it.

Lindy wanted more. She lowered her head to the wound and began to lick it. As the red juice coated her tongue, she closed her eyes and savored the sensation. Each tiny swallow she made filled her with a satisfaction not even baking could bring her.

After a while, she lifted her head again. Slowly, she reopened her eyes, gazing across the room with bloodshot eyes and a dreamy expression. A strange, creepy grin grew on her face, letting small streams of blood flow out of the corners of her mouth.

She had just fallen in love. In love with blood. She needed it. She hungered for it and no matter what, she had to get more.


	13. Amnesia

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

Watermelons was trapped in the castle dungeon for days now, the curse of madness consuming more and more of her mind and personality. Now, she reached the point where she could no longer make sense out of the things around her anymore.

Her mind had given in. She was unable to think or analyze anymore. She could no longer distinguish between dream, fantasy and reality. But something inside her still seemed to work. Otherwise, she would be either in coma or dead.

The more time passed, the more something seemed to take control of the purple mare. It was barely noticeable, though, since her behavior was already extremely strange and kept changing the whole time. But now, something changed so notably, it caught the attention of the royal guards.

While in the first days, she kept mumbling strange things and spoke out wishes to harm others, she became more and more mute as time passed. Now, her desire to harm suddenly started aiming against herself.

The royal guards noticed that bleeding bite marks appeared on her front legs. They once even caught her repeatedly kicking her hind legs against the iron bars, until they became blood stained and the mare could hardly stand anymore. Now, she threw herself against the stone walls as hard as she could when the guards weren't watching.

Little did they know that this behavior was no longer caused by herself, but by something that was trying to break free.

"What shall we look for, my mistress?" one of the reaper mares asked.

"Anything you can find. I want to know what the de manis are doing. The more you can find out, the better," Celestia replied.

The reaper then kneeled down before the bright demi-goddess.

"As you command," she spoke, teleporting herself away.

Princess Celestia had been the new mistress of the reapers for two days now. Yet, she still could not believe what she had gotten herself into. Even though they returned under her rulership, they were still reapers and still acted according to their nature.

These last two days solely consisted of trying to arrange herself with these murderers. Since they were so heavily feared amongst the ponies, Celestia had to be extra careful that none of her subjects would encounter them. So, the princess of the sun ordered the reapers to stay hidden in the dark and only show themselves to ponies if absolutely necessary. Even then, they needed to be disguised.

With a sigh, Celestia thought back to the time just a few weeks ago. Equestria was slowly blooming again and filled with millions of subjects. Everything pointed to a bright future for the entire land... who would have thought that all this could change so dramatically so quickly.

Now, Equestria was no longer a land of peace, hope and reconstruction. It had become dangerous, filled with de manis and curses, as well as fearsome beasts the de manis lured here. Even Celestia had no idea what would become of the land she loved so much... yet.

The princess of the sun could hear wings flapping behind her. As she turned around, the reaper Silverstream landed and bowed down. Although it turned out that the reapers seemed to be very loyal, even if they had their suspicions about Celestia, he was by far the most cooperative. Therefore, the bright demi-goddess kept him inside Everfree City and used him as the link between the reapers and herself.

"So?" was all the princess of the sun said.

"There are no de manis around the city. I also spied on the citizens. They are still deeply under trauma and their mental condition is quite worrying," he stated.

"How high do you think are the chances for them to fall under Maledictum Insania?" Celestia wanted to know.

"Frankly, very high. The curse of madness makes insanity contagious. Those who witnessed horrors are likely to fall to insanity themselves. Once they have fallen, they too will start spreading insanity on others. I strongly suggest to take measures to increase the mental stability of the subjects," the reaper suggested.

"Very well. I planned to deliver a speech anyway. For now, I want you to keep searching for de manis and consume as many as you can. Also, keep me updated on the discoveries of the other reapers," Celestia ordered.

"Yes, my mistress," Silverstream replied and turned around.

Celestia had already turned back to the window and watched the city in worry when she heard the clattering of the reaper's hooves stop. As she turned her head back to him, she saw him stare at her.

"Is there anything else?" the bright demi-goddess wondered.

"My mistress... please forgive me for asking, but... are you certain about forbidding us to consume flesh?" Silverstream wondered.

Celestia's expression shifted to an angry one. Just the moment she thought she somewhat could deal with the idea of ruling over the reapers, they blast out something like this.

"Yes. I will not make any exceptions. You will have to compromise with the kind of food Equestria has to offer without harming any other beings," she spoke sharply.

"We will gradually lose our strength if we do not feed our inner de manis. If you are willing to take this, then there is little we can say against that. You are our mistress and we will follow all of your rules, no matter what. But we will eventually become too weak to hunt de manis and undead ponies anymore. Should this happen, we helplessly depend on your mercy to end our existence," the reaper explained.

"Which is precisely what I am aiming for. Even though I am your mistress, I do not share any sympathy or trust for you creatures. I will make sure you do not even dare to think about turning against me again. I will grant you no rights and your entire existence depends on me. What I will do to you when the moment comes you become too weak to fight anymore is what I will decide on once it happened," the princess of the sun stated.

"You have every reason to doubt us. Many of us as well are very uncertain what to think of you as well, I have to admit. But keep in mind, my mistress. If we can not fight and serve you no use anymore, you will have to consider to end us and gain new reapers," the reaper stated.

Now, Celestia became furious. She pawed the ground shortly and puffed once.

"Are you suggesting that I should pass the reaper curse on to some of my subjects?!" she asked loudly, nearly shouting.

"What other options are available, my mistress?" the reaper spoke calmly, bowing down before Celestia.

"I will come up with a different solution eventually. Yet, one thing is absolutely certain: I will prevent this from happening wherever possible. You better stop provoking me now, Silverstream! Be gone!" the bright demi-goddess ordered.

"Yes, my mistress," the silvery gray reaper replied and started flying away.

Celestia needed a moment to gather herself again. After all that had happened, the thought of losing even more subjects now became unbearable to her. So, of course, the emotionless, purely logical and cold-hearted way of thinking of the reapers only evoked even more fury and despise in her.

It were reasons like these that made it so hard for the princess of the sun to handle her new role. It were reasons like these which made her hate reapers even more. But unfortunately, Silverstream of course was right about several things.

Celestia could not stay unorganized with them as they currently were. She needed to think of a way to use them effectively, since there were so few of them in total. With reapers being the only way to effectively protect her subjects from de manis and the post-mortem effects of Maledictum Insania, she also needed to think of ways to make them complete these tasks. She somehow needed to be able to find out when a pony was supposed to die and how.

She would soon have to get started on organizing all this. But first, she needed to pay one of her subjects a visit.

Lindy Pie had been living in the castle for several days now. Yet, Celestia had just no time to check on her. Lindy herself did not seek her company either, but that might be due to her being rather shy and not wanting to disturb her in important tasks.

Now that Silverstream mentioned how contagious insanity can be, the bright demi-goddess became a bit worried about the teenage earth pony. She certainly did not appear to be the kind of pony who would turn violent, though. What she had seen just traumatized her too much and she obviously seemed to know what had happened was wrong. But she still would need to at least talk about her problems.

As Celestia wandered along the corridors of Castle Everfree, she thought back with a sigh of how lively this place used to be. Although Equestria was still reconstructing just weeks ago, that time now rather seemed like a golden era compared to the new situation. So many servants were constantly wandering from one room to another and there was no need for guards. Now, a hoofful of guards spread over the entire castle was all that could be seen.

Despite all, the princess of the sun could not allow herself to even think of how much she was involved in all this. Now, everything depended on her. Should she have a break down, the entire land would fall into chaos and with such a low population left, it might be the bit that would ultimately extinct pony-kind in Equestria.

On another point, if she allowed the thoughts to overcome her, she might fall to Maledictum Insania herself. Although she was a demi-goddess, very mighty and embodied the entire opposite to darkness, she still would not take the risk to assume she was immune to the curse of madness. So, very soon, she would push the memories of how she caused Luna to fall to insanity so far in the back of her mind, she would nearly forget it.

Finally, Celestia arrived at the guest room where Lindy Pie was living in. She knocked at the door, but no response was given.

"Lindy, my subject. Are you in there?" the bright demi-goddess asked.

Again, she got no response. Celestia decided to open the door. As she stepped inside, she realized the room was empty. All cupboards and closets were open and emptied out. It seemed like Lindy had moved out of the castle again.

"Why yes, your highness. She was here," one of the cooks of Castle Everfree confirmed.

"When have you seen her the last time?" Celestia wondered.

"Three days ago. She came down here to ask if she could use castle resources to bake. We allowed it and she made a strawberry tart. After she was done, she gifted it to us and just left again. Strange if you ask me. She really did a great job! We could use more talented bakers here!" the cook replied.

"Do you have any idea where she could have gone to?" the bright demi-goddess wanted to know.

"Well... no... But seeing how skilled she is, I think she just left to find some work or something," the mare stated.

"Very well... thank you for your help," Celestia spoke and left the castle kitchen again.

She just couldn't shake off the feeling that something had happened. This was just too strange. But the princess of the sun certainly had no time to start searching for Lindy on her own. She only had a moment to check on the teenage filly, but not to spend a whole lot of time with her.

The paperwork slowly began to cluster up again and Celestia knew precisely that the extremely busy times of the early stages of reconstruction were just about to begin once again. It would only take one or two weeks more before the bright demi-goddess would start drowning in work again, so she needed to use the spare time she had left to set and arrange as much as possible.

Celestia went back to her throne room and sat down on. Then she picked up a quill, ink and a scroll by magic, writing a letter. It was an order for Silverstream to meet her at once.

A day had passed and the princess of the sun had calmed down enough to face him again. She just hoped he would be more careful about what he said to her this time.

Just ten minutes after the letter was sent, the silvery gray reaper stallion entered the throne room through a secret passage in the ceiling. He stood on a wooden beam, his eyes swiftly wandering across the hall to make sure no ponies were present before he landed in front of Celestia and bowed down.

"How may I serve you, my mistress?" he wondered.

"One of my subjects has gone missing. Lindanella Christine Pie. I care a great deal for her well-being and I wish for you to find her and report to me what had happened to her," Celestia ordered.

"As you com-" Silverstream started, but stopped and turned around as he heard a pony approach.

Instantly, he lifted up to the ceiling again and hid himself in the shadows. A moment later, one of the royal guards came rushing in.

"Your highness! We require your presence in the dungeon!" he spoke.

"What is the matter?" Celestia wondered.

"The murderer has started to injure herself heavily! We can not get her to stop! She is about to kill herself!" the guard explained.

Immediately, the princess of the sun got up and started following the guard. While he wasn't watching, Celestia made a small gesture to tell Silverstream to follow them secretly.

As she entered the castle dungeon, Celestia instantly found confirmation that the guard did the right thing to alarm her. There was blood and torn off pieces of fur all over Watermelons' prison cell, as well as small splatters of dried blood stuck on the iron bars. The insane mare herself was at the very back, hitting her head repeatedly against the stone wall, which as well had become blood stained by now.

Watermelons looked horrible. She was bleeding all over, heavily bruised and it seemed like she had several broken bones. Large bleeding fissures were seen across her coat, which looked like she tore them open even more on purpose.

Celestia stepped in front of the prison cell, about to speak up. But Watermelons seemed to already know she was present and stopped hitting her head against the wall. She slowly turned around, grinning at her with an expression that no longer could be identified as mere insanity. The wicked grin and wide open, bloodshot eyes seemed to be stuck on her, as if her facial muscles had cramped up so much that she became unable to make any other expression.

Watermelons was shaking all over very violently and began to hyperventilate at the sight of the bright demi-goddess. Slowly, she got up and brought herself in position to charge her.

Celestia, though, remained calm. There was no way she could get her and all that would happen if she started running towards her would be that she hit the iron bars with full force. What she did not know is that this was exactly what Watermelons wanted.

The guards as well just stood there idly, unsure what to think or do as they watched the purple mare run towards the iron bars with full speed. What happened then, though, was something none of them expected.

The insane mare jumped in the air just moments before she reached the iron bars. As she hit them, her body literally exploded into a bloody mess and a black creature came flying out of it, launching against the princess of the sun.

Due to the sheer amount of surprise and the force of the jump, Celestia become knocked over. Disbelieving, she stared at the blood covered, six legged de manis atop of her as it raised three large scorpion tail-like extensions into the air, their long nails aiming at her head.

The guards tried to react in time to stop the monster, but before even one of them could process what had happened fast enough, Silverstream suddenly gave up his cover and tackled the de manis, knocking it off from his mistress again. While he and the de manis were fighting against each other, the guards finally reacted.

"Reaper!" they shouted, about to engage in the battle against both of them at the same time.

"Stop! Let him fight!" Celestia ordered quickly.

The guards hit the breaks and looked at the bright demi-goddess in confusion. Their focus then switched back to the reaper and the de manis.

The beast had rammed one of the nails through his right shoulder while he used his front and hind legs to hold off the other two extensions while also doing his best to stop the de manis from biting him. Still, it managed to sink its fangs into the reaper's left front leg and bit hard.

Silverstream, though, could use this to his advantage. He suddenly rolled over, pinning the de manis below him by pressing his bitten leg down hard. As the other two extensions became loose and rammed into his back, he too decided to try to engulf the de manis now.

The reaper turned into a black cloud and surrounded the de manis. Moments later, the cloud compressed more and more, until both the de manis and the cloud compressed back into Silverstream.

He stared at Celestia with an expressionless face while the guards stared back in a mix of fear, confusion and anger. The bright demi-goddess, although covered in blood, remained collected and gave the reaper a serious look.

"Guards. Leave the reaper to me. Go back inside the castle and guard it," she ordered.

The royal guards nodded in confirmation and slowly backed away, their eyes constantly stuck on Silverstream. They were unaware of Celestia's arrangement with the reapers, so they just figured she was about to fight him by herself. This made sense to them, since they knew they would hardly stand a chance against a reaper, but a reaper would hardly stand a chance against Celestia in return.

After they left, Celestia finally could take off her faked expression and shivered lightly, disgusted by the sensation of blood all over her body and in her mane and tail. This was a close call. If Silverstream would not have reacted as fast as he did, the de manis would have killed her.

"Although I hate to admit it, I owe you my gratefulness," she spoke while casting a spell on herself to get rid of the blood. Silverstream bowed down before her.

"I will serve my mistress and protect her, no matter what," the reaper replied.

Celestia's focus returned to the prison cell. Blood, guts and bones were spread everywhere. By now, she started to get used to such sights.

"A de manis... how could there have been a de manis inside her?" the bright demi-goddess wondered.

"This must be link Nightmare Moon was mentioning. Watermelons was heavily affected by Maledictum Insania and her condition worsened very rapidly. It appears that, if an affected pony is not eliminated in time, it will create a de manis," Silverstream figured.

"The queen of the de manis surely outdid herself. This is dreadful..." Celestia commented.

"This knowledge is both very useful and very alarming. As I mentioned before, the subjects of Equestria are all highly unstable. Should we not take drastic steps immediately, we risk to lose them all," the reaper resumed.

"You are right about that... Silverstream. Go back to the city. Keep a close eye on the subjects. I think I know what needs to be done," the princess of the sun ordered.

"Yes, my mistress," he replied and started sneaking away in the shadows.

The sun went down and night began. Celestia was in the castle archive, scanning through the collection of magical books. She was looking for a very specific spell, which she was certain would bring her many advantages. Half an hour passed until she finally found the right book.

After turning several pages by magic, she finally had it. The Amnesia spell. One so mighty that only the greatest of unicorns could cast it.

The spell would erase major parts of a pony's memory. Due to the fact that this could easily get abused, it was considered black magic. Like all black magic spells, this one, too, was off limits for most unicorns. But now, there was no other option anymore but to cast it.

Celestia carefully studied it in order to control it perfectly. She had mixed feelings about her plan to use it. On one hoof, she knew it was the right thing to do, since it would help her subjects. On the other hoof, she felt bad for manipulating them against their will.

The advantages, though, clearly predominated. She would do her subjects a great favor to allow them to forget the horrors they had seen. They would mentally recover and even forget that Equestria was no longer a safe and peaceful land.

The demi-goddess of light and day was done. She put the book back at its place and slowly got on her way to the balcony. Despite all the advantages the spell would bring, she still felt bad. If she erased the memories of Nightmare Moon and the de manis, she would also erase all memories of Luna. Even though nopony of the current generation even knew Celestia had a sister, they still would believe it if they read a lore of both of them. But once this spell was cast, the ponies would strictly assume these tales to be false, convinced that Celestia never ever had a sister.

But there was no other way. Without this, all she had done so far would be wasted. Without this, Nightmare Moon would win after all. It had to be done.

Celestia stepped on the balcony, the moon shining brightly on her face. She stared at it for a moment with a sad expression, while the moon seemed to stare back in hate.

"Luna... the world may forget you ever existed... but I will not. No matter what happens, I will never forget you, my dear sister," she spoke.

Now, the bright demi-goddess closed her eyes and spread her wings. Her horn began to glow and a bright light filled the night.

That night, many of the remaining subjects of Equestria had gruesome nightmares about the de manis and Nightmare Moon. But as soon as Celestia cast the amnesia spell, she appeared in their dreams, enlightening them. While the light filled them more and more, the visions of de manis and Nightmare Moon became increasingly blurrier and achromatic. Ultimately, the entirety of Equestria fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

This would be the last major action in Equestria for ten years.


	14. Presentiment

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

Read, sign, pass. Read, sign, pass. Read, deny, pass. Read, sign, pass. Finally, the stack of paper was done and the bright demi-goddess let out a small sigh before she continued on the next.

The circle of reconstruction had started over again. Celestia was up to the throat in work. But in contrast to the last time, she had no little sister to... assist her with the paperwork anymore. Yet, the princess of the sun and moon, as she was addressed by now, learned from her mistakes. Instead of trying to solve everything by herself, she now had several hired workers who helped her manage the bureaucracy of the land.

Of course, this was also a trick to keep the ponies of Equestria busy. The princess of the sun and the reapers were the only ones who did not forget about Maledictum Insania, even though not a lot of information about this curse had been public to begin with. They had to keep up a delicate balance act between keeping the ponies occupied and not overworking them. As it turned out in the last ten years, both can equally bring them to insanity.

Sadly, Celestia had many opportunities to study the curse of madness already. It is now that she learned how dreadful it truly was. Ponies had become very unstable. Things that before the curse would have only shocked them now was reason enough for affected subjects to commit murder; and there were plenty of such cases. Still, despite all, Celestia successfully managed to more than quadruple the total population of Equestria.

As soon as she got the most basic economic systems working again, she set up standards to support families and couples planning to have children. Many foals were playing on the streets and a vast amount of female subjects were currently pregnant with at least their second foal. A good start to repopulate the land.

Naturally, there was not enough space in Everfree City anymore. Even though there were still several pony skeletons spread over the land and there was still a lot of destruction, the subjects finally began to spread out and raise fallen cities again. As it quickly turned out, the Everfree City immigrants were by far not the only survivors. All over Equestria, small groups of ponies had been hiding well enough to make it through the era of Nightmare Moon. As soon as the worst was over, they too began the reconstruction.

But even with all these positive news. Even with all the work Celestia had to do, she could not allow herself to forget about the de manis. They were still hiding somewhere in the land, even though they barely showed any activity in the past decade. The reapers, though, were still very active. So, as Silverstream, a reaper mare and another reaper stallion snuck into the throne room to give their reports, Celestia took this indifferent.

A lot had changed in their organization. By now, it was normal that they barely ever saw their mistress. Most orders and missions were given out via magical letters aimed to the individual reaper. Although Celestia still barely trusted them, she learned that they truly were absolutely loyal and several of them would even prefer risking their own lives over failing on a mission she gave them. Silverstream was one of them.

The stallion's pegasus wings had begun to corrupt under the influence of the de manis he had consumed. He slowly started losing feathers and the wings reshaped themselves into bat wings, making it increasingly more difficult for him to fly properly. He also gained several scars from his battles against insane ponies and de manis.

As the three reapers kneeled down before their mistress, her sight remained on the papers she levitated in front of her face, one by one.

"So? Speak up!" she spoke in an indifferent tone.

"Maledictum Insania had been completely forgotten, as well as the events during Nightmare Moon's rise. But they still remember the wicked mare of darkness and her children. It seems like these memories are just too vivid to completely vanish," Silverstream reported.

"How much do they remember about them?" Celestia asked.

"Very little. While Nightmare Moon is slowly turning into a surreal legend, the subjects can not even remember the de manis properly anymore. Depending on the region I go to, I hear or read stories of demanis, demans or demons. The latter description seems to spread the most, though," the reaper mare replied.

"I can only confirm this," the other reaper stallion continued. "The only name still clearly remembered is Nightmare Moon. Other than that, it seems like the subjects do not even remember the connection between her and the 'demons'. Stories of them are becoming rare and all that is clearly said in them is that they are evil, but not why and how this is expressed."

"Tell me more about the actions of the de manis," the bright demi-goddess ordered while still reading through the papers.

"As you assumed correctly, they retreated to the darkest spots in Equestria. Mostly deep underground in well hidden caves or abandoned diamond dog cities. But sadly, we can not say much about these locations," the stallion spoke.

"Why is that?" Celestia wondered.

"It appears they are guarding the places they retreat to. From what we could observe, they are clustering up by the numbers of several ten thousands and fortify their hideouts. It feels like they are building strongholds," the reaper mare explained.

"I want you to stop them. We must not allow them to regain any strength," the princess of sun and moon ordered.

"I regret to say this, my mistress, but it is already too late for that. We already attempted to assault one of these strongholds, but we failed. Even though the de manis do not dare to attack Equestria, they are too many to be handled by just a few reapers. For the sakes of the land's protection, we can not all come together to just attack a single stronghold either," the stallion replied.

"Alright..." Celestia spoke with a sigh. "I suppose we could not have prevented this, considering the sheer amount of de manis still in existence. Speaking of it, how well are you all doing on your hunts?"

"From what the others have reported, they have consumed an average of seventy de manis per reaper. I myself am at 103," Silverstream answered.

"This will not do. We must effectively reduce their numbers if we want to bring an end to this threat," the bright demi-goddess insisted.

"My mistress... we have not consumed any flesh in over ten years. We are weakened and can barely handle the de manis anymore. Even our recovering abilities have reduced to-" Silverstream started, but found himself interrupted by his mistress.

"No excuses! I will not make any exceptions! Not just simply because the thought of having carnivorous servants is very displeasing to me, but also because I do not support the idea of killing more creatures than needed!" Celestia spoke loudly.

"What about carrion-feeding, my mistress? If we come across dead animals or ponies, we could feed on their bodies. Also, since we have to eliminate insane ponies anyway, we could also feed on them," the reaper mare suggested.

Now, Celestia finally stopped on the paperwork for a brief moment. She moved the documents levitating in front of her aside and gave the three reapers below her a very serious glance.

"No," was all she said before bringing the papers back in front of her by magic and continued her work.

The reapers remained silent and just bowed down. Her word was law and they would not dare to protest. But while the two other present reapers just took the response as it was, Silverstream had an idea why she denied their request.

Keeping Equestria free from flesh-eating creatures was just secondary to her in this case. While it might just seem like she was undiscerning, she actually tried to keep the reapers on a short leash. The truth was that Celestia was actually toying with the idea to grant them permission to feed on flesh under certain circumstances, should it be necessary. But for now, she wanted to find out if reapers truly needed it.

Finally, the reaper mare got up again and summoned a big black book, immediately opening it and starting to scan through the pages.

Celestia used her gained knowledge of curses to manipulate the reaper curse and expand it. In order to find out when and where which pony was supposed to find its final rest and how, she created a highly enchanted book. A book that was deeply bound to the destiny of the entire land and quickly turned out to be the most useful tool in the battle against insanity: the book of death.

This book had limitless pages and contained the precise information of everypony's date of death. It also updated itself each time when a new pony was born and the flow of destiny changed. While the bright demi-goddess kept the original for herself, she gave the reapers the ability to summon their own copies, containing only names they are responsible for.

"My next reap is in ten minutes, my mistress. Do I have permission to leave?" the mare asked.

"You all have permission to leave now," the princess of sun and moon replied, her eyes constantly stuck on the papers.

"As you command," the three reapers spoke and started sneaking away.

The hours passed by and just before sundown, Celestia ultimately finished her paperwork for today. Keeping so many things in mind and reading through so many documents each day gave her a slight headache, but she kept it together. Even though she pushed the gruesome memories and her guilt far in the back of her mind, Celestia still remembered that she had to blame herself for being in this situation now.

The bright demi-goddess got up from her throne and started wandering through the castle while letting the sun sink to the horizon. With the increasing population of Equestria, the amount of employees in the castle increased as well. Also, something strange began to happen with their behavior. While ponies shunned the dark hours in all the hundreds of years before, they now occasionally could be met outside of their rooms late at night. In a few very rare occasions, Celestia could even catch one stargazing. She wasn't precisely sure why they started changing their mind on the nighttime hours now, but she figured the amnesia spell had something to do with it.

Once again, Celestia arrived at the castle balcony and began to gaze into the stars herself. Although years had passed, Celestia kept her promise. She did not forget about Luna and came to visit her by watching the moon and the stars each night for a little while.

The more she occupied herself with her little sister's work, the more she came to acknowledge the ingenious mind behind it. Luna arranged the stars so that one could line them up to pictures. These pictures were even put together so that they would tell stories and as the seasons change, so do the pictures and stories seen in the sky.

No matter how Celestia looked at it, the night sky was a masterpiece. She could not possibly imagine how much time her little sister must have spent on it to make it that beautiful and deep. But something confused her about it.

For a while now, she started noticing four stars moving very slowly in strange patterns. At first, the princess of the sun and moon figured that this was just another one of Luna's dalliances with the night sky. But the more time Celestia spent studying it, the more she came to realize that everything Luna did was on purpose. There was no such thing as a pointless little dalliance for the sole purpose of having something change and vary.

Considering the grade of perfection Luna had created, this was just so out of place, it worried Celestia. After all, Nightmare Moon had the full support of darkness and the bright demi-goddess still remembered how tactical she was. Back then, she already spoke out assumptions that Nightmare Moon might have backup plans in case she would end up defeated. Celestia figured that this backup plan was Maledictum Insania. But now, she began to wonder if this was truly the only one.

The bright demi-goddess would not take any risks when it comes to the queen of the de manis. She would rather waste her time on researching the stars and risk ultimately just finding out that she overreacted and there was nothing to it than being unprepared for another strike of Nightmare Moon. Beginning tonight, Celestia would spend an hour each day observing and mapping the star movements.

Another year passed when Silverstream was stalking one of the Everfree citizens late at night. He constantly kept himself hidden in the shadows while trying to come closer and closer to the mare wielding a small cloth bag around her neck.

He had been observing the mare for a while now and was granted permission by Mistress Celestia to eliminate her. The bright demi-goddess added her name to his book of death and tonight, she was supposed to die. But the moment Silverstream had finally gotten into a good position to strike, a de manis suddenly appeared next to the mare.

It was a very tall, white one with no face, mane or tail, wearing a black suit. Before the mare could even scream, the de manis grabbed her and disappeared with her in the shadows.

This did not go according to plan. It was not the first time either that this de manis appeared. The white creature had been spotted all over Equestria, stalking ponies at night in cities or forests with shallow reaper protection. Due to its appearance and behaviour, it was given the nickname Slendermane, the abductor.

Although it was seen all over the land, the reapers were convinced that this was just a single, unique de manis. It had highly advanced teleportation abilities, so getting anywhere it wanted to be in just the blink of an eye was easy for this de manis. Also, every attempt to attack it failed, yet. Slendermane appeared to be one of the older de manis, as he already had a lot of battle experience and could easily handle the weakened reapers.

Usually, Silverstream would have sensed it approach. But due to being very starved on flesh, his senses dulled. He would have hardly been able to keep up with this strong de manis anyway. But at least, the mare was gone now and she dropped her cloth back as Slendermane abducted her.

Silverstream came closer and opened it, finding a small bottle filled with crumbled leaves inside. After he opened and sniffed the content, he was met with a gray-greenish cloud and a very rough, bitter aroma.

He was right about the mare. These dried leaves were of an extremely poisonous plant called Basilisk Tongue. The toxin was so potent that just the tiny dose the reaper inhaled would have been enough to kill a whole family. But fortunately, the reaper curse granted him immunity to any kind of poison or disease. So, the best thing he could do right now to eliminate this very dangerous poison was by eating it.

After he swallowed the crumbled leaves, he hid his face beneath his cloak and held his breath in for several seconds. Then, he took a few deep, controlled breaths into his cloak, until he stopped exhaling the poison.

Now, his job was done here. The reaper closed the bottle again and stored it inside his cloak, as there was still some poisonous gas inside he needed to dispose of safely. But while on his way out of the city, he came across a sight he had never seen before. Immediately, he picked up what concerned him, turned around and began to fly towards the castle.

Celestia was in her bed chamber, but not in her bed. She had fallen asleep on the floor in front of a large collection of notes and blueprints of stellar constellations and movements. Ever since she decided to study these four stars, she had been working herself to the bone. So, of course, as she heard knocking on her bed chamber door and got woken up, she already was in a very bad mood.

"This better be important..." she spoke sleepily.

"My mistress. We have a case of emergency," the voice of Silverstream spoke on the other side.

The bright demi-goddess was weak and tired, but tried to get up as fast as she could and opened the door. But she instantly became wide awake as she saw what the stallion wanted to show her.

On his back, he was carrying a gutted reaper mare. Her lower half and left front leg were missing entirely and her guts were hanging out of the torso. But strangely, Silverstream's cloak had barely any blood on it. It seemed like the mare had already drained out.

Since she was a reaper, she was still alive. But she could hardly hold herself on his back with just one limb left. Finally, due to the heavy blood-loss, the mare fainted and fell off Silverstream's back.

"Why is she not recovering? I have seen even heavier injuries on reapers before, but they always recovered in a matter of minutes," Celestia wondered.

"I do suffer from the same problem, my mistress," Silverstream spoke and bit his right front leg hard for demonstration.

His sharp reaper fangs wandered deep into his own flesh, causing him to bleed. He then lifted it to present the wound to his mistress. While in the years before, Celestia saw such small injuries heal up in just a few seconds, it just kept bleeding this time.

"As I told you quite a while ago, all of us are starved on flesh and blood. But we need to feed like the de manis do in order to maintain our strengths. By now, we hardly differ from regular ponies anymore in terms of power, skill, sensory function and recovering ability," the reaper stallion explained.

"Do you know of any other reapers in distress?" the bright demi-goddess wanted to know.

"No. I found her by random. Judging from the trail of blood she left behind, she dragged herself all across the land just to get to you, my mistress. Apparently, she is unable to express her situation in any other way. This creates room for very worrying speculations about the well-being of the other reapers. She might be by far not the only one in this situation," Silverstream answered.

There she had it. Celestia became silent for a moment as she now had solid evidence that reapers needed flesh. There was no other way anymore but to create an exception for reapers which allowed them to consume the forbidden type of food.

The dismembered reaper mare slowly came back to her senses, soon trying to bow down before her mistress. Seeing what she caused this former subject to go through made the princess of the sun and moon experience condolence for reapers the very first time. It now started to get through to her how cruel she had been acting towards them so far. This was just not like her usual, very kind personality. But slowly, she started to understand why she acted like she did the whole time.

Celestia remembered how she started hating herself even before she became the mistress of the reapers. At first, she figured this self-aimed hatred was because she allowed these killers to get away with their crimes. But thinking back of what she was forced to order them in the past years, she truly hated herself for having to harm her subjects through them. Eventually, she let out her self-hate on the reapers.

This is what came to her mind and it made sense. But there was more to it, which she couldn't think of anymore because it had fallen from her memory into her subconscious. Celestia had forgotten that she was the cause of Nightmare Moon's creation, the rise of the de manis and the destruction of Equestria. But her guilt was still there, deeply sunken into her personality.

Since she pushed her guilt so far away from her mind that she could no longer connect it with her feelings, she had been searching for those she thought were responsible for Equestria's situation and that of her sister. Ultimately, she convinced herself that it were the de manis, Nightmare Moon and the reapers which were to blame.

Although the princess of the sun and moon did not add this to her self-analysis, she still came to understand that the way she acted towards the reapers right now made her not a whole lot better than Nightmare Moon. They may have turned against her, but that was because of fear. The situation had changed for them and there was no way they would ever be able to return to normal. They now had to cope with what they had become and she only made it a lot harder for them.

Even though it would take Celestia more than one thousand years until she would finally stop hating the reapers, she at least aimed to act more in character again. So, for the rest of the night, she tried to deal with the situation presented to her.

Another day had passed by. The bright demi-goddess had been arranging herself with Silverstream in behalf of all the reapers long past midnight and set up standards regarding their consumption of flesh and the conditions under which she would be allowing them to die. The reaper mare he had brought to Celestia, too, seemed to want her life to end, so she became the first ever reaper to find her final rest. But what consequences the death of a reaper would bring would still remain unknown for weeks.

But right now, this was the least of Celestia's concerns. After she spent yet another hour observing the night sky and mapping the four stars which caught her attention, she now finally had enough information to track their movement. It seemed like these four stars were slowly rotating around the moon, coming closer to it little by little. To make sure she was right, she made some backwards calculations to see where the stars should have been more than twenty years ago.

As she did that, she came across an error. No matter how often she tried, the results always ended up being false. So she reduced the backtracking time year by year. Finally, her calculations worked out at about eleven years ago.

While at first not sure what this would mean, it soon struck Celestia. The stars did not start moving before Nightmare Moon. She definitely had something to do with this.

The bright demi-goddess stared at the moon in worry. According to her calculations, the stars will reach the moon in approximately one thousand years. What would happen then? What was the sinister queen of horror planning? Only time would tell.


	15. Fallen

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

In a land cursed with insanity, everything has consequences. Making the right choice is a task of near impossibility when demons are constantly trying to destroy everything. Being merciful to one creature can directly cause another being to experience cruelty, even if not intended. When this is uncovered, one might try to find a way to balance out the circumstances. Yet, this again is only what the demons expect. By guilt-tripping you, you can be the cause of massive disaster without even realizing it. Such conditions are the ones out of which the most dreadful things are created, which will leave permanent marks on the world once they spawned.

A week had passed since Celestia agreed in letting the first of her reapers die. After the mare had given her final breath and her soul left her body, the cloak undid itself and flew away. Celestia had no influence in this. It was something Nightmare Moon seemed to have set up, so she could not manipulate it. All she could do was wait and see what would come.

As usual, the princess of sun and moon was deeply sunken into her paperwork. Even with help, she had been working on the seemingly endless piles of paper all day and the sun needed to be lowered. Yet, she was still far from done. Celestia knew that, once again, she would have to partially work throughout the night.

Just as the bright demi-goddess allowed the sun to disappear on the horizon, Silverstream entered the throne room. But this time was unusual, since he neither requested an audience, nor did he use the secret passage on the roof only the reapers knew of. He just came trotting in through the main entrance.

"Silverstream! While I do acknowledge that you mastered stealth by now, I still wish for you to avoid risking contact with my subjects if not necessary!" Celestia protested.

"Apologies, my mistress. But I do have my reasons. I could not use the usual way because I needed to guide someone to you who can not fly," the reaper stallion replied.

It was now that Celestia realized that there was additional hoof clattering and a small figure hidden behind the reaper. This shocked the bright demi-goddess a bit.

"How dare you to show yourself to foals and even force one to come with you?! I hope you have a good explanation for this!" the princess of sun and moon shouted in anger.

"I do. He sought me out and followed me on his own free will. He is not a usual foal either," Silverstream answered calmly.

Finally, they reached Celestia's throne and the silvery gray stallion bowed down before her. The colt whom Silverstream had guided here slowly stepped out of his cover behind the reaper.

Now, Celestia understood what he meant, causing her eyes to widen and her mouth to fall open. The colt was unicorn and no older than two years. But still, he was wearing a reaper cloak.

"How... how can this be? A... cursed foal?" she wondered speechlessly.

"Yes, my mistress," the little colt replied, also bowing down to her now. "My name is Gleam. It is an honor to serve you."

It struck Celestia heavily on an emotional level to see such a young subjects being cursed with the reaper curse and willingly acting like her servant. She had to cover her mouth with her left front leg to hide her expression and tried hard to suppress the tears. Silverstream understood that his mistress wanted answers, but could not speak right now.

"Apprentice Gleam. Our mistress would like to hear your story," he recommended to the colt, who nodded shortly in response.

"I am from Canterlot. A few days ago, I was woken up in the middle of the night by banging on my window. I opened it and this cloak here began to wrap itself around me. I didn't know what was happening to me, but I know that it changed me. I got new instincts now, telling me to seek you out. I left my home and started traveling to Everfree City on my own, only leaving a note to my family. I still don't understand what I have become, but Silverstream told me that we are not the only ones," Gleam explained.

Celestia was still like paralyzed and covering her face. She understood that she caused this. By allowing the heavily injured reaper mare to die, the curse passed on to a foal. Gleam had been robbed of his future and was now forced to live as one of her killers for the rest of his life.

The bright demi-goddess forced herself to keep it together. After a minute of gathering self-control, she was able to speak again.

"I... deeply regret to tell you, but you are now no longer a pony or one of my subjects. From this night forth... you are one of my reapers. Your... task will be to protect Equestria from dangerous monsters and demons, as well as freeing the souls of ponies unable to die... I will create you a special book only you are allowed to open and read. It will contain names of ponies, as well as the time of their deaths and the conditions leading to them. You must free their souls once their end has come..." Celestia explained.

The foal just nodded in understanding. He took this completely indifferent. The curse must have already taken most of his emotions, which made this only all the more tragic to the princess of day and night. After a while, Gleam looked up to her.

"What shall I do now, my mistress?" he wondered.

"You... may take a rest... I will decide upon your next actions tomorrow..." Celestia replied.

"As you command," Gleam spoke before turning around and walking back outside.

Silverstream as well turned around and followed the young reaper in order to guide him back outside unseen. But after just a few steps, Celestia spoke up again.

"Silverstream... I would like to speak to you for a moment..." she requested.

"Yes, my mistress. Gleam, wait outside in the shadows. I will pick you up later," the reaper stallion replied.

Again, the little colt just nodded and proceeded. Silverstream returned in front of the throne and bowed down again.

"How may I serve you, my mistress?" he wondered.

"This..." Celestia started, unable to find the proper words for a moment. "What would you think if I uncursed him?"

"If you did so, you would destroy the reaper cloak. It appears as if Nightmare Moon thought our curse through very well. In case we would turn against her, our new mistress would have to cope with being responsible for stealing young foals' lives each time one of us dies for good. If you wished to spare children from going through the existence as a reaper, you would only have the option to destroy all reaper cloaks. But that again would destroy the only legion capable of fighting demons," the reaper stallion replied.

"I see... yet... I can not let this happen ever again. While I can't spare him of this fate anymore, I will spare future children from following his footsteps. I regret to say, Silverstream, but we will have to overthrow the conditions of your freeing we set up. Reapers may consume as much flesh as needed, but it seems like you will stay by my side for all eternity. I hope you understand," the bright demi-goddess spoke.

Reapers have no feelings, so this decision did not shock him. They also do not have dreams or hopes, so he did not mind his only chance to find rest being taken away again. Silverstream was especially emotionless and logical. Even though he had already consumed many demons and been through many battles, he only thought that this turn of events made sense.

"Absolutely, my mistress. A very reasonable decision. I will be honored to serve you until the end of time itself. You give me a purpose and for that, my gratefulness is eternal. I also believe that the other reapers will think just the same way," Silverstream agreed.

"So be it... thank you. You may leave now," Celestia spoke.

"As you command," the reaper stallion replied and started walking outside.

Instantly, Celestia picked up a few blank scrolls, a quill and an inkpot. She knew that it would be impossible to prevent the death of every reaper. Every now and then, one would get devoured by demons, which again would cause foals to be cursed with the reaper curse. But she needed to inform them about her decision.

This was unacceptable for the princess of the sun and moon. She just had to find an alternate way to fight demons. Somehow, there had to be a way to support the reapers, so they would not have to risk their lives.

Celestia still had the elements of harmony, but her sister Luna was imprisoned on the moon, along with Nightmare Moon. As long as she remained outside of this world, Celestia would not be able to use the elements again. But maybe... there might be a way to trick the elements in thinking that she is back. If Celestia somehow managed to create a presence of Luna in Equestria, this might be enough. So, the bright demi-goddess decided to start researching Luna's dark magic whenever she found some time. It was entirely up in the air if this would work, though. Even then, it would take multiple hundred years or preparation.

So continued the night which, once again, changed a lot. But it did not remain a secret between Celestia and the reapers only. All the time, Slendermane had been hiding behind the throne, listening to every last word and watching as Celestia took notes about her plans.

Decades passed by, until nearly two hundred years stood between the era of Nightmare Moon and now. Maledictum Insania had become normality to Equestria, just like the demons, as they were now called by everyone still knowing of them. A lot had changed in the land, and so did the reapers. By now, a majority of them had consumed so many demons that they had grown demon wings and a demon horn, enabling them to use both the ability of flight and magic. Since it appeared that, once a reaper reached this stage they do not alter any more in appearance but instead grow more and more powerful, this type of reaper was called an elder. Silverstream had become one of them.

He made it his responsibility to train Gleam and the cursed colt quickly grew up and became a skilled reaper. In all the many years, Silverstream never stopped taking his tasks serious and still kept on hunting demons, insane ponies and the undead with high efficiency. But something did change on him, other than his appearance.

It was another quiet winter night, the snow gently covering Everfree City in a white blanket while he kept patrolling around the city, absent-minded. For a long time now, he wasn't at the peak of his sense perception anymore. The many demons he had consumed were clouding his mind. He did not even remember how many he had consumed... something between one thousand and two thousand for sure.

Although his patrolling time was long over, he kept on rotating around the city, round after round. He barely needed to think of what he was doing anymore anyway. Everything had become such a routine, he could do his tasks pretty much automatically. He also didn't noticed how much his mental condition changed, since it happened so gradually.

Silverstream did not feel tired or weak. He didn't feel anything at all to be precise. He also didn't have any thoughts running through his mind at all. He was just sleepwalking through his duties, not realizing that time was passing.

His trance was ultimately broken when he sensed the presence of a demon. The elder reaper looked around, but although his senses were working properly, he felt like watching through a tunnel. He did not really have a feeling for his body and mind anymore. Everything appeared to be so dull, as if he was just watching a movie of his own life without actually being involved. This feeling didn't even change as he spotted the demon he sensed.

It was the infamous Slendermane. While in the many years before, Silverstream was not powerful enough to sense this very stealthy demon, he now could feel his presence. It was not unusual to see him around the capital either. He had been attacking Everfree City once in a while for decades. But due to Silverstream, he barely ever succeeded in abducting one of the citizens. This time was different, though. He was not alone.

Many glowing red eyes appeared behind the tall white figure in black suit, starting to surround Silverstream. He understood that he was being ambushed, but this was nothing for him to worry about. He had been attacked by groups of demons before, even bigger than this one. He was capable of defeating and consuming all of them.

This time as well, he attacked the demons one after another, completely automatic. Even in battle, he felt dull and was like sleepwalking. So, he did not realize that the demons barely fought back at all and just allowed him to consume them.

Slendermane just stood in the background, watching the elder reaper with no eyes while he helped more and more demons to appear behind him, just to have them get close to Silverstream and wait to be consumed.

Ten were gone. Twenty were gone. Thirty. Forty. Then finally, the silvery gray stallion started showing the effect Slendermane and the other demons were waiting for.

After each additional consumption, Silverstream became slower and slower. First, he ran towards each demon, exploding into a cloud of darkness, surrounding it and quickly compressing again. Then, he was just trotting and adjusted all other actions to the same speed. Casual walking followed. Finally, Silverstream could only walk very slowly, wobbling around as if he was suffering from a heavy case of sleep deprivation.

Silverstream stood in front of the next demon and gazed at it for twenty seconds while breathing slowly but deeply. The demon did not move and just grinned at him, patiently waiting to be consumed. Finally, Silverstream started dissolving into a black cloud, slowly clustering around the demon and trapping it. Black fangs grew in the mist, but instead of ramming into the demon, they just weakly held it while the cloud came back together.

The elder reaper's appearance returned to normal. He stood motionlessly in place, nothing happening in his mind anymore. Then suddenly, he just collapsed. The demons began to chuckle. This is what they had been waiting for to happen. All they needed to do now was to retreat and watch. This was sure to become a great show.

Half an hour passed until Silverstream finally came back to his senses. But as he slowly sat up, it wasn't him controlling his actions anymore. The more than one thousand demon voices in his head had out powered his own. As a result of this, Silverstream could not distinct between his thoughts and their thoughts anymore. Also, he suddenly regained something he did not have ever since he became cursed by the reaper curse.

Slowly, a grin started growing on the silvery gray stallion's face as the intense emotions, longings and cravings of the demons rushed through his being. He couldn't think anymore, but he could feel. Right now, we was acting completely on instinct and all he could wrap his mind around was that he was very, very hungry.

Step by step, the elder reaper patiently went back inside Everfree City. The soft white coat of snow muffled his hoof steps on the cobblestone ground, allowing him to walk around completely unnoticeable. As he arrived in the center of the city, he took a big inhale through his nose. The delicious smell of ponies was all around him, causing his saliva to start flowing through his jagged teeth. He just couldn't hold himself back any longer. He was so hungry. He needed to feed.

The elder reaper summoned his scythe and went over to the next best house, slicing his weapon through the hinges on the door and causing it to fall out in the snow. The noise did not wake up any of the ponies, but the screams that followed just moments later did.

Celestia regained consciousness only very slowly after she had been awake for nearly two days straight, doing nothing but paperwork. The reaper mare had to go so far as to shake her mistress in order to wake her up again.

The bright demi-goddess could hardly hear or see the mare. Celestia's sight was very blurry and her ears were nearly deaf. But the more she came to her senses, the more she was able to understand.

"-rgency!"

Celestia instantly became wide awake as she realized that she was being alarmed. Now, she could hear the chaos going on. The bright demi-goddess jumped out of her bed and ran down the corridors to the balcony. As soon as she arrived, she gasped in shock.

Everfree City was burning. Ponies were screaming and wildly running around in panic. Blood and body parts were covering a large portion of the ground and many buildings were destroyed. Occasionally, the sound of metallic clashing could be heard, followed by a reaper cloak rising into the air. In the distance, Celestia could see more reapers flying towards the city, one after the other.

The princess of the sun and moon now teleported herself down to the city. The ponies immediately started clustering around her, crying and begging for help. She could not even ask them what was going on. They were too traumatized to even reply. Then finally, the now adult reaper Gleam appeared in front of Celestia.

"My mistress! We are under attack!" he shouted.

"Where are the demons? I can not see them!" the bright demi-goddess asked.

"No! There are no demons! It is Silverstream! He is slaughtering the citizens!" Gleam replied.

The expression of stun and shock intensified on Celestia's face. Silverstream?! The most cooperative of all the reapers and closest one to her?! How? Why is this happening?

Celestia immediately ordered her subjects to retreat to the castle and began searching for the traitor with Gleam. It was difficult to get around, since the ground as well as the sky were filled with panicking subjects, running and flying around wildly. Still, it did not take long to find Silverstream, since he was attracting a lot of attention.

When they found him, he was standing on top of a heavily damaged house, holding an earth pony filly impaled on his scythe. The little body was hanging on the blade right above the reaper's head, allowing the blood to come down on his cloak, mane and coat. Silverstream was grinning hugely while he added her blood to his already crimson red soaked body.

Suddenly, he turned his head over to Celestia. The traitor teleported away and reappeared right behind her. The bright demi-goddess instantly turned around and raised an arcane shield, blocking off the scythe aiming for her neck.

"Why are you doing this?!" Celestia asked quickly in disbelief and rage.

"Because it is fun!" Silverstream replied in a hysterical tone, giggling a bit.

Gleam summoned his own scythe and swung it at Silverstream. But the elder reaper was far too fast and skilled. He dodged his attack with ease and teleported away again. The bright demi-goddess growled in fury. She could not believe what she just heard.

"Gleam! Protect the citizens! Make sure they flee to the castle without getting seen yourself!" she ordered quickly.

"As you command!" he replied.

Celestia's eyes turned white and an arcane aura started building up around her. Then, she slowly started to ascent into the air. Moments later, the entire burning city became additionally illuminated by countless chains of pure light shooting out of the bright demi-goddess' horn, aiming for Silverstream. While he was able to teleport away and dodge the chains several times, Celestia ultimately was able to catch and disable him.

As long as the reapers were on their own, they were unable to stop Silverstream's massacre. Never would they have thought they needed to prove their skills against another reaper. An elder on top of that. But Celestia was lot more powerful than they were. With her help, it seemed clear that they would quickly achieve victory. Still, the worst was yet to come.

It seemed as if the battle was over when the reapers clustered around Silverstream, who was lying down on the ground tightly wrapped in chains of light. He struggled. He screamed. He laughed. But he was not able to free himself. Celestia landed right in front of the reaper, lifting him up by magic and gazing at him in total hatred.

"I can not believe you, of all, turned against me and my subjects! After all you have done for me! You had been working so hard! You had been trying so much to give reapers a purpose! Now that you have done this, I ask you: What was it all for?!" she shouted.

Silverstream just kept grinning while the blood of his victims kept dripping from his body and flowing out in small stream between his fangs. His head tilted sideways as he gave his answer.

"What are you going to do with me now, my 'mistress'? Are you going to punish me? If so, I would like to know how this punishment is supposed to look like. Will you break your code and torture me? Or will you go so far as to execute me, after you had sworn to prevent any more foals from becoming reapers?" the traitorous reaper wondered.

The princess of sun and moon wanted to give an immediate reply, but found herself unable to do so. He got her with this argument. Although he managed to kill several other reapers as seen from the freed cloaks flying away, Celestia herself did not want to cause even more children to become something like him.

Silverstream's grin grew even larger and he started giggling again. The bright demi-goddess had seen this face so many times before, but never on a reaper. All the sudden, it struck her.

"Could... could it be? Can reapers fall under the influence of Maledictum Insania?" she wondered.

None of the present reapers could answer this question. Celestia was not the only one who assumed that reapers would be immune to the curse of madness, since they were already cursed and no longer ponies. They, too, thought of this as impossible.

But now, they had the evidence right before them. Silverstream had lost his mind. There was only one thing she could do now.

"You leave me no other choice. As much as the thought of forcing yet another foal into becoming a reaper disgusts me, I have to execute you..." Celestia spoke in regret.

Her right front leg rose into the air, signalling all reapers to get ready to strike. As Silverstream came to understand that he would not get out of this situation alive, he began to laugh out loudly. But the laughter did not last long as he suddenly started to choke for no explainable reason.

Celestia's hoof came down, followed by the scythes. The insane reaper's body became impaled by black blades from all directions. After waiting a few seconds to ensure that he was dead, they retreated out of his body.

Every creature still present was expecting the body to fall over now. But it didn't. Silverstream kept sitting in place with the expression of a dead pony on his face.

Suddenly, a red smoke started escaping from the body, filling the bright demi-goddess and her reapers with confusion, which only grew even more as the light chains suddenly disappeared, even though Celestia did not dispel them. Shock followed as they saw Silverstream's head turning sideways, looking at a nearby reaper mare.

She became alarmed and wanted to strike again. But while she readied her weapon, Silverstream reached out his right front leg in her direction. It tore open, revealing a much, much bigger black skeletal arm beneath it, violently grabbing the reaper mare and crushing her down. The other reapers were caught so by surprise, they failed to react.

Silverstream's body started rotting extremely fast before their eyes while he put his weight on the skeletal arm, pushing himself upright while the mare's bones snapped and a puddle of blood started forming around the claw. Suddenly, it turned into the same black cloud the reapers create when trying to consume a demon. The smoke wrapped around the crushed reaper mare and as the arm formed back together, the mare was gone. Nothing but her blood and cloak remained.

While the cloak lifted into the air, looking for a new host for the reaper curse, Silverstream's hind legs tore open, revealing humongous black boned legs with hooves and their ends. Now, the skin on his chest started tearing open, exposing a large black ribcage.

Finally, the reapers snapped out of their stun and began to charge Silverstream from all directions. As those on the ground came close, he went back down and quickly turned around. In this turn, his tail fell off and large black boned tail with a very pointy spike at the tip revealed itself, slicing through several members of Celestia's legion.

The flying reapers closed in from above, but Silverstream just stretched out his bat wings, causing the skin on them to tear away and reveal huge black skeletal wings with javeline-like tips. Before they could even react, several more reapers became impaled and consumed by black smoke moments later.

More and more of this creature bursting out of Silverstream became revealed. As its second arm tore free, it suddenly summoned a massive red scythe with a waved blade. Even though it was a lot bigger, the scythe seemed to work exactly like a reaper scythe. All the reaper that were struck by it died immediately. But the beast did not let the souls escape. It captured them with a free claw and guided them inside Silverstream's rotting and tearing mouth.

Celestia needed significantly more time to react again than the reapers, since she had to deal with her emotions, the resurfacing memories and the trauma relating to them. She was paralyzed, staring with open mouth and tiny pupils as this thing tore her reapers to shreds. She was so traumatized that she didn't even react to their blood splattering over her.

The red smoke flowing all around this monster... it was pure red darkness. The last time Celestia had seen it was around two hundred years ago, during the era of Nightmare Moon. Right now, the bright demi-goddess could just stand idly and watch in trauma while all the horrible pictures returned.

By now, it was clear to everyone that the creature breaking out of Silverstream was a demon. An unspeakably powerful, skilled and fast one, growing even more dangerous with each reaper soul it devoured. Even though it was still just breaking free, the demon could easily defend itself against the entire legion of reapers.

This demon was huge. Even a good portion larger than Celestia and made entirely out of blood soaked black bones. The fact that it stood upright made the demon appear to be even larger. As the last bits of coat fell off from the skull, the bright demi-goddess and the reapers could see a set of black goat horns, their sharp tips ending next to the massive jaw filled with countless long and sharp teeth. The empty eye sockets were glowing in a sinister red that was last only seen from the eyes of Nightmare Moon herself.

While most of Silverstream's body rotted away and fell apart, the reaper cloak remained around the demon. It even reshaped itself, forming sleeves for the demon's arms and holes in the back for the skeletal wings.

Dozens of reaper corpses were surrounding the demon. Blood was raining down on those still alive. But suddenly, all remaining reapers jumped to distance and the battle came to a halt. They realized that, without strategy, they would all rather die and get devoured by this mighty demon than having a realistic chance to win. It was simply too strong and the more reapers souls it devoured, the worse the situation became.

The huge black skeleton as well went out of battle stance, watching as the reapers stood idly, grinding their teeth in tension. Then, it slowly turned around, staring down to the bright demi-goddess. Her expression seemed to amuse the demon. It laughed lowly at her with a voice as if it was made from hundreds of demons at once.

The reapers immediately went back into battle stance, ready to guard their mistress with their lives. But against their expectation, it did not start attacking her. Instead, the demon calmly turned around and started walking towards Castle Everfree.

Finally, Celestia snapped out of her shock. Her expression shifted to a mix of anger and worry, as she feared he was aiming for the rest of the citizens. She teleported back inside the castle and immediately raised a force field around it.

The reapers tried their best to stop the demon. But everytime one came close enough to strike, it swiftly swung the huge red scythe and devoured the reaper's soul moments later. They could not even distract it. No matter what spell they cast on the demon, it just ignored them, completely unaffected by even the strongest spells.

As soon as Celestia made sure the citizens were safe and as deep inside the castle complex as possible, she started running towards the castle archives. She still precisely remembered where she hid the scroll containing all necessary knowledge to lift the reaper curse. The bright demi-goddess could only assume the demon was plotting to erase the city's entire population, but she couldn't take risks. The demon was extraordinarily mighty. If it found that scroll, this could mean the end of her reaper legion.

As soon as she found the scroll again, she did the only reasonable thing she could possibly do to ensure this knowledge would only be accessible to her. She burnt it. Celestia still had the spells in mind and she could note them down again when needed. Suddenly, Gleam rushed into the castle archives.

"My mistress! They can not stop it! The demon is coming!" he alerted.

After Celestia finished destroying the scroll and made sure it can not be reconstructed by magic, she rushed back outside and towards the castle balcony to see how the battle against the demon was proceeding.

When she arrived, she had to realize that the demon had already reached the force field and immediately began to strike it repeatedly. She could feel how her powers became drained with each attack.

Celestia knew she would not be able to hold the protection up for long. Even the reapers didn't know what to do anymore. They had been reduced dramatically in number. All the elders were dead by now and everytime they tried to interfere, one of them only ended up being devoured by this completely overpowering enemy as well.

The bright demi-goddess ran down the corridors of the castle, trying to get to the entrance hall as fast as possible when the sphere gave in. The entire castle began to shake as the demon violently tore down the walls, forcing Celestia to dodge rocks and pillars falling down on her. But when she finally arrived, it was already too late.

Ultimately, the princess of sun and moon came to realize what the demon's true goal was. She saw as it exhaled a massive cloud of red darkness on the pedestal presenting the elements of harmony in all their glory. Since Everfree City was the capital of Equestria and it had by far the highest level of protection, she never worried about their safety. But now, she had to realize how thoughtless that was.

The red darkness changed the elements. It seemed like Nightmare Moon's power drained theirs, turning them from bright and colorful gems into round light gray stones.

Celestia was too late. She stared at the demon in disbelief, while the remaining reapers came over and clustered around her for her own protection. The demon stood idly, laughing lowly again in this terrifying mix of deep eerie voices as it observed its work in satisfaction. Finally, it turned around to Celestia.

"_My queen was right about you, Celestia. You are disgracefully weak and thoughtless. To imagine you made it that easy for me and just observed as I slaughter 'your warriors'. Or does it bring you joy to see them getting punished?"_ he wondered.

Now, determination returned to the bright demi-goddess and her expression shifted to anger. She couldn't let her fear of the red darkness take her over.

"So you can talk," Celestia commented.

"_All of Nightmare Moon's children can talk. Just the most of us do not feel like wasting any words on worthless creatures like you," _the demon answered, slowly approaching the bright demi-goddess.

One of the reaper stallions broke out of the formation and charged the demon to protect his mistress. The demon, though, just grabbed him with its left arm and held it into the air while ramming the sharp, pointy claws through his body.

"_It seems you traitors just refuse to learn. But I take you adopted this habit from your new mistress," _the demon commented while watching the stallion gag and his blood running down the demon's skeletal arm. Celestia showed her teeth in anger.

"Let go of him! You already caused enough havoc!" she ordered.

Now, the demon's arm turned into a black cloud and consumed the crushed reaper. Once more, a reaper had found its end through this demon and nothing but blood and the cloak remained, which immediately started flying away. After that, the demon's head turned back over to the bright demi-goddess.

"_I am Malice, the right hand of Nightmare Moon. You are not commanding me, pathetic idol of light,"_ it spoke.

"Nightmare Moon's right hand? And you spoke to her... are you saying she somehow planned this and sent you here?" Celestia wondered.

"_You should have seen this coming, Celestia. Did you honestly believe by sealing our queen into the moon, you would make us stop fighting? Her wrath will never end and neither will we. This war you started has just begun,"_ Malice explained.

The princess of sun and moon felt deeply insulted by his statement. Her eyes turned white again and an arcane aura began to build up around her body.

"I was not the one who started this war! You monsters did! All this destruction is your doing!" she shouted.

This question seemed to displease Malice. He really expected more of her.

"_You already forgot it, Celestia? Not even two hundred years have passed since this war began and you have already forgotten your role in all this?"_ he wondered.

"Quit this act, demon! Speak clearly! What have you done to the elements of harmony? What is behind all this?" Celestia demanded. But this only caused the demon to laugh lowly.

"_I already wasted enough words on you. My queen expects of me to accomplish what she could not. Face your punishment, demi-goddess of light and traitors of Queen Nightmare Moon,"_ Malice threatened and went back into battle stance.

This was a really bad situation. A battle inside the castle was sure to end in a huge act of destruction. But there was no way around it anymore. This demon, Malice, was already here and it was very unlikely he would fall for tricks to lure him away. He wanted Celestia's life and nothing would be able to distract him from that goal.

The bright demi-goddess and her reapers got ready to fight. This situation seemed familiar to Celestia. It was like her battle against Nightmare Moon. Just like back then, this time as well it was either all or nothing.

Malice started charging towards Celestia and swung his scythe, but the bright demi-goddess could block it off with an arcane shield. Instantly, the reapers started attacking the demon from all directions again. But while Malice turned for his second strike, he cast a strong fire spell, setting the entire entrance hall on fire.

Celestia was able to dodge the second strike, but the heat forced her to retreat deeper inside the castle. She knew that this was exactly what Malice wanted. He wanted to cause as much destruction as possible, so the deeper they would move their battle inside the castle, the better.

Yet, there was little the bright demi-goddess could do to avoid this. She assaulted Malice with one powerful light spell after the other while the reapers assisted her with their own strikes and spells. Yet, it seemed like Malice's cloak granted him immunity to most attacks. Not even arcane magic appeared to affect him too much.

This demon was unlike any other demon Celestia had ever seen. They all were extremely hard to defeat, but they had their weaknesses. Light spells and harmony would usually weaken them. But it seemed like the dreadful combination of high demonic powers and the reaper curse made Malice a demon without weak spots. Neither Celestia nor the reapers had any idea how to even scratch this foe.

The battle continued down the main hall of the castle. Every now and then, Malice spontaneously decided to dodge an attack by crushing through a wall, only to break through another wall close to the bright demi-goddess moments later.

The longer the battle continued, the clearer it became that Malice deserved his title as Nightmare Moon's right hand. Not only was he just as vicious and destructive as she was, but he was also very similar to her in terms of power and skill by now. Simultaneously, he could block and counter the reapers' attacks, proceed towards Celestia, dodge her attacks and even used telekinesis spells to tear chunks of rock out of the castle, launching them at the princess of day and night.

By now, Celestia was unable to even get out of her defensive position anymore. She was able to guard herself so far, but Malice kept devouring one reaper after the other. If this would go on just for a bit longer, he would kill all the remaining reapers.

The bright demi-goddess tried a different approach. If she could not outpower this demon, perhaps she would be able to outwit it. Malice expected of her to keep retreating while he continuously proceeded, leaving a massive trail of destruction and blood behind him. So, Celestia decided to do the exact opposite. She suddenly started running towards the demon, readying another blast of arcane magic.

Malice took this indifferent and simply raised his scythe to strike as soon as she got in range. But just as he was about to swing, Celestia teleported behind the demon and unleashed her arcane spell. Malice tried to turn around and block it off, but he was not fast enough. The arcane explosion caused him to trip backwards.

The reapers saw their chance. Right now, the demon had his guard lowered. They needed to put this moment to use, assaulting Malice's legs and casting explosive fireballs towards his chest in order to make him fall.

Malice could dodge several strikes and managed to regain his balance, but he was still off-guard. Right now, he held the scythe in a defensive way, using it as an arm guard with the blade facing behind him. The demon was about to strike again when Gleam suddenly decided to ram Malice with full force.

The demon got pushed backwards into a wall. Although the stone itself gave in, something unexpected happened. The sudden thrust and the breaking wall caused the blade of the scythe to turn. By sheer accident, it sunk into Malice's ribcage.

At first, it seemed like this incident didn't matter. Malice just pulled the blade back out of his ribcage and got back into battle stance. But then, a black smoke began to rise from the demon and into his cloak, which then loosened itself from his skeletal body moments later. The scythe disappeared out of Malice's claws and finally, the reaper cloak abandoned Malice, flying off as if it was thinking he had just died.

Malice seemed to be frustrated by this, as he growled in fury. But he was not even thinking of stopping this battle now. Instead of a scythe, Malice now presented his pointy wing bones, peaked skeletal tail, sharp claws and fangs.

The battle continued with even more of the castle falling to destruction. But something was significantly different now. Malice seemed to be severely weakened. He was no longer as fast and strong as before. When Celestia noticed this, she started using light spells against the demon again. This time, they caused him to get weakened furtherly.

The reaper curse seemed to have been Malice's key element to his invincibility. Now that he had been stripped of it, he was nothing but a very strong regular demon anymore.

The fight went on for a few minutes more until the last surviving reapers finally managed to catch Malice. One by one, they turned into black clouds, trying to consume parts of the demon. He was unable to move anymore, in front of him Celestia, staring at him in determination. Behind him a deep drop down to Everfree City.

Malice ultimately had to admit that he lost the battle, but he didn't seem to care much about it. He just stood idly now, laughing lowly at princess of sun and moon.

"_Do not think that this is the last time we will ever meet, Celestia. As long as there are reapers, I can always return. Killing you was optional. I already fulfilled my purpose for the moment. But before I go, let me give you one final gift in the name of Queen Nightmare Moon,"_ Malice spoke.

Surprisingly, he allowed himself to fall backwards, dropping out of the castle and down towards the burning city. Still in midair, the reapers engulfed this mighty demon and finally managed to break it apart. But as they did this, his entire demonic power became unleashed at once. The right hand of Nightmare Moon turned into a massive explosion of red darkness, scattering the reapers everywhere. The shock wave instantly extinguished all fires in the city and caused the last remains of Castle Everfree to collapse.

The last thing Celestia saw was a big boulder coming down on her. On impact, she became knocked out. Everything turned black once more.


	16. The Waiting Begins

**Maledictum Insania: The Creation**

By Nero Darkard (aka. NeroTheDarklord)

Celestia couldn't tell how much time had passed. Neither could she tell if she was still unconscious or awake again. Everything was black and perfectly silent, as if she had reached the end of all things. Or... was this it? Was she dead? She couldn't tell until she started feeling the gravel on her back move.

"I found her! She is over here!" a female voice spoke, very muffled.

Moments later, she felt how more and more weight was removed from her body and she started seeing something. Slowly, the realization that she was still alive returned, along with the memories of the most recent events.

The bright demi-goddess felt multiple hooves carefully pulling her back up on her legs. She was surrounded by reapers. All of them were bleeding. Some even had heavy injuries or missing limbs. But what they all had in common where the features of elder reapers. Black eyes, demon wings and demon horns. It seemed like Malice was made out of so much demonic energy that just consuming a part of him was enough to instantly turn them into elders. As soon as Celestia was able to stand on her own again, they bowed down to her.

"My mistress. We are relieved to report that the demon Malice has been completely destroyed," one of the reaper mares spoke.

"I... see..." Celestia commented weakly, still drained physically and mentally.

The princess' eyes wandered around. Red. Everything was red. It was just like back then. Red darkness in the air, bleeding corpses painting the landscape, the silence of death in the air, which was filled with the smell of beginning decay.

Yet, something was different. Wherever the red darkness reached, plants started to grow unnaturally fast. Celestia could literally watch them sprout out of the ground. Finally her glance returned to the reapers.

"Where are the citizens?" she wondered in a weak, nearly absent-minded tone.

"Gone," a reaper stallion spoke in the background, now approaching his mistress. It was Gleam, who had turned into an elder reaper now himself.

"Gone...?" Celestia asked.

"Of the thousands of citizens, only a few hundred survived. Even more got mortally injured as the castle collapsed, so we were forced to reap them. The remaining fled out of the city ruins. We tried to catch and cast memory eraser spells on them, but we can not ensure that this incident will not be remembered," the reaper stallion explained.

Again, Celestia became silent for a few moments. Her eyes kept wandering across what was left of Everfree City. Red darkness... dead subjects... total devastation...

"My mistress. We must leave. These plants you see growing here are hostile. We already tried to fight them back, but they keep regrowing," Gleam suggested.

With a silent nod, the bright demi-goddess agreed. Even though the realization came to her only very slowly and she saw everything with a speechless neutrality, she knew she could not just leave Everfree City like this. Even though they could have taken faster, more direct ways now, Celestia and her reapers aimed to go to the entrance hall of the broken castle.

The elements of harmony where still in place and looking like round worthless stones. Compared to their former glory, no one would even suspect them to be of any value anymore, as they appeared to be just parts of a sculpture.

Celestia approached them. It was now that she realized the element of magic was missing. Finally, the first emotion returned to the bright demi-goddess: Worry.

She placed her horn against each individual element and closed her eyes, but they would not respond to her. Whatever Malice had done with them, it seemed like Celestia had lost her connection to the elements of harmony. If that was the case, it would also explain why the element of magic had disappeared. It required the power of all the other elements in order to exist. Without a wielder and having the remaining elements drained like this, it just ceased from existence.

The bright demi-goddess lowered her head, a grimace of suffering growing on her face and tears rolling down her cheeks as she started to grasp the magnitude of the recent events.

The reapers just stood nearby with expressionless faces. Since they had no emotions, they already seemed to be over the shock. Right now, they were just idly waiting for their mistress. After a minute, she gave out her first order.

"We will leave the elements of harmony here. The demons already got what they wanted. There is no point in protecting them anymore," she spoke and continued walking. Mutely, the reapers followed.

Celestia's path took her down the downhill and right through the fallen city. Her head kept on moving left and right, analyzing the destruction with grief. While she and her reapers slowly stepped over the thousands of corpses, a sprout spontaneously decided to wrap itself around one of the princess' legs every now and then. Occasionally she even got stuck, causing one of the reapers to swiftly cut the plant before she even considered casting a spell herself. Finally, they reached the end of the red cloud of darkness.

"What are our next plans, my mistress?" Gleam wondered.

The bright demi-goddess needed a moment to think. Her gaze turned back to Everfree City... No... this blood covered ruin could no longer be called a city. These hostile plants were quickly covering it up anyway. It would not take very long before this place would turn into a full grown forest... Everfree Forest...

"Canterlot," Celestia suddenly spoke. "We will set up the new capital in Canterlot. The city is built on high ground and thus easy to defend. The crystal mines are also still giving out many gemstones. The last time I have seen Canterlot, it was just about to bloom. The ponies even started building a castle in my honor, so conditions could not be better."

"As you command," Gleam spoke.

So began Celestia's wandership. Although she could basically teleport herself to Canterlot in an instance, she needed the time to think.

All this... all that had happened... there must be a meaning behind it. Celestia had been dealing with the demons for so long now. She knew that when they pulled off something big like this, it was planned and well thought through... Malice... why did he go straight for the elements of harmony and not her?

It was true that they were dangerous for demons. A force of balance and harmony mighty enough to completely annihilate them. But the demons knew Celestia could not use them anymore... or could it be? Could they somehow have found out that she was trying to reactivate them?

It just did not add up to the princess of sun and moon. At best, the elements would have only supported the reapers in fighting demons, as they could only purify one being at a time. They would have never become a serious threat to the demons. Would they really put so much effort into stopping Celestia in doing something that would have so little effect in the long run?

Malice was so different. This demon was not only more powerful than any other demon she or the reapers had ever encountered, it also was very focused. Even though Celestia witnessed his entire existence from beginning to end, he still somehow seemed to have gotten his orders from Nightmare Moon herself. The connection between the demon queen and her children must be much deeper and fundamental than she imagined.

The bright demi-goddess lifted her head towards the night sky. She gazed at the moon and, as usual, she felt the moon stare right back at her... Nightmare Moon... she wasn't even in this world anymore, yet she still could influence events happening in Equestria on such a massive scale. Through her connection with the demons, she could keep planning and executing humongous disasters. It felt like her and Luna's banishment changed nothing at all, even as if it was missing its purpose entirely. This was probably why Nightmare Moon cared so little about her being sealed away. It seemed like she saw this coming and calculated it in her plans.

Slowly, Celestia's eyes grew wide and her mouth slowly fell open. Her head lowered again as it now came together to her. Nightmare Moon had thought up a very detailed plan long before Celestia even reacted! She calculated every possibility, even her own defeat! The bright demi-goddess came to understand this as soon as she thought about her studies of star movements.

In approximately eight hundred years, the four stars circling around the moon would reach it. Malice refused to talk about his queen when Celestia demanded answers. He even apparently cursed the elements of harmony to ensure they would remain useless. All this could only mean one thing: Nightmare Moon set up a plan to break free from her banishment.

The elements of harmony might be inefficient against a mass of demons, but not when used against just one. Nightmare Moon is of such enormous importance to the demons that her erasure would be sure to defeat all of them. Now that Celestia was no longer connected to the elements, nothing was left in this world capable of stopping the wicked mare of darkness.

Celestia suddenly halted and turned around. All reapers instantly bowed down to her, as they knew she was about to give them an order.

"I want you to look for the new reaper foals and bring them to me in Canterlot. There is a lot we need to arrange to make sure we will never encounter an insane reaper or even Malice ever again," she spoke.

"As you command," the reapers replied and started spreading out.

Now, the princess of sun and moon cast a teleportation spell. As she appeared again, Canterlot was just in front of her. On her last steps to the city, she already started to think of possible arrangements.

Nightmare Moon was not the only one who could plan things in advance. Celestia had about eight hundred years left to prepare for Nightmare Moon's return. When this happened, she needed to be ready. Also, with the demon queen's return, Celestia would get a second chance to rescue her sister. No matter what the cost may be, she had to find a way to stop Nightmare Moon and free her sister.

The reapers and the demons. Nightmare Moon and Celestia. Both sides would do all they could to turn the sinister queen's return to their advantage. A long, long era of secret preparations lay ahead for all of Equestria. The waiting begins.

At the same time, far away from Canterlot, a mint-green earth pony mare snuck through the woods of a nearby village. In her mouth was a hunting knife, professionally sharpened and even though it had clear marks of being used many times before, it was expertly cared.

The mare was stalking her target for hours now. But no matter what, she could never be certain about its location. It seemed to be aware of her presence, almost as if it was stalking her back.

Finally, the mare became frustrated. Whatever her target was, it was just as good in stalking as she was. This whole situation was very pointless, so she might as well just be blunt and confront her target, she figured.

"Okay, look. I know you are here. You know I'm here. Let's just end this stupid game and attack me already," the mare provoked.

Not even a second later, she saw something jumping towards her in the corner of her eye. The mare instantly turned around and swung her knife.

A metallic clashing sound followed. The mare had blocked another hunting knife with her own. The owner of this one was also an earth pony mare, but of brown coat and orange mane. While they at first looked at each other grimmly, their expressions both suddenly switched to stun.

Both mares took a step back and placed their knifes on the ground, still seemingly not believing what they both saw.

"You go hunting, too? Seriously?" the mint-green mare wondered.

"And I thought I was the only one in all of Equestria doing that!" the brown mare replied.

"My gosh! So did I!" the mint-green commented.

"What does your family think about that? Some of mine eat with me from time to time, but I'm the only one bringing them pony meat," the brown one wondered.

"I'm from a whole family of cannibals! Wow... I just can't believe it! Our families _so_ have to meet up! What's your name?" the mint-green one asked.

"I'm Jaffa Cake! What's your name?" the brown mare asked back.

"Cindanella Julie Pie! Nice to meet you!" the mint-green mare replied.


End file.
